Narcissus
by Frozzy
Summary: The blood sample was the last thing Sakura needed to piece together the puzzle of Madara's death. Once it was pieced together, Konoha would face the lies of the past, and Sakura would play a special part in the exoneration of the Uchiha name. With two brothers united within the gates of Konoha, Naruto and Sakura have their work cut out for them. ItaSaku
1. Prologue

**A/N: **Edited November 7, 2013

_If you are interested in my original novels and works__, check out this site on facebook: /arfrederiksen_

* * *

**Narcissus  
**By Frozzy

* * *

**Prologue: **

_**Grass Country – approx. thirteen months ago**_

"Saké," she said and flopped down like a limp bird on one of the rickety chairs that were lined up along the bar counter. The barkeeper, an overweight man with feathery hair and a beard as voluminous as his stomach, gave her a look that made her want to crack his face open.

"Ya sure, missy?"

Ichiro was dead, dishonorably beheaded with his back to his opponent, and in a day or two Sakura was the one who would have to step forward and pass on that bit of information to the Hokage. Her first official mission as jonin and she was bringing death home with her. Sakura knew that she had picked the right place to drink away her worries; a seedy, rundown and isolated local bar. It would be okay.

"Saké," she said again and stressed the word. The barkeeper considered her for a minute and saw how her shoulders sagged and her head hung low. Then he reached out for a black bottle below the bar. The drink was poured, emptied and refilled.

"Somethin' eating ya up?" the large man asked.

"No," Sakura answered and threw the man a look. He backed off and went to service the other end of the bar. Naruto would have hugged her. Sai would have patted her shoulder, and told her that it was statistically impossible for all individuals in their profession to live beyond thirty. Kakashi wouldn't have done much, but he would have been ready to lend her a few comforting words if needed. Tsunade would have told her to go fetch her nuts from the place where she had dropped them. Tough loving was her forte. And what was Sakura doing? Being a pathetic, sniveling girl. She had no nuts.

"I'm excused this time," she said to herself. Until morning, she was excused. She hadn't known Ichiro prior to their mission together. He had been a qualified substitute for her permanent teammates while they had been out philandering about or whatever else they had been doing outside the village. But, unlike Sakura herself, someone else had known Ichiro as more than just a face and a name. That someone's world was gonna crash when Sakura stepped through the Konoha gates. Sometimes she thought that she would be better off doing what she did if she swapped gender. The statistics all said it. Women retired early and they were less likely to accept high class missions. Sakura had broken the stereotype all her life, but sometimes the pressure of her life philosophy grew too hard. She wasn't as strong as Tsunade, but she was stronger than Ino and Hinata.

"Anythin' else, sir?" the barkeeper said to Sakura's left. He was speaking to another customer.

"No."

Sakura looked to her left. She nearly took a giant bite out of her glass when she recognized the face of the man on the stool next to her. He wasn't wearing his signature red and black coat and he had escaped her notice until now. Her tongue turned into a fat and juicy mushroom, and her face froze up. Uchiha Itachi, sans cloak and hat, was sitting next to her. A sociopathic criminal and the man who had been the recurring monster of her nightmares as a kid sat in the seat next to hers. Her brain immediately went through various scenarios of chopping up Uchiha Itachi's spine or his face.

"I would not cause a commotion if I were in your situation," Itachi said, his voice so strangely quiet and soft that it made her think of Neji and Hinata. Sakura prepared to slide off her chair and head for the exit, screw subtlety six days to Sunday, but Itachi's voice alone stopped her.

"I don't intend to harm you," the Uchiha said with his black stare fastened to a spot on the wall behind the grimy counter. Not on her, she noted, and for that she took the man on his word. He would fight back if she started a fight, but he wouldn't start a fight himself.

"I find that hard to believe," she said. It was hard to sit still when every bone in your body tingled with adrenaline. There was a twitch of muscles near the corner of Itachi's mouth, but Sakura wasn't going to stick around long enough to see what that would develop into. When she slid off her chair this time, there was no voice dragging her back onto it. In the mission report she delivered to Tsunade's office five days later, Uchiha Itachi was not mentioned in any part of it. As if by coincidence, neither was Sakura's tottering walk back home from an inn she didn't remember having checked into. Ichiro's funeral was held one week after her return to the village and Sakura didn't attend.

* * *

_**Fire Country – present day**_

Blonde hair colored the bottom of her bathtub a moldy yellow. The wet and spongy mass clogged the drain like fungus. Sakura's bathtub had grown fur overnight. She returned home from a fourteen hour shift at the hospital and a pet zoo had moved into her bathroom.

"Ino. Get your ass in here!"

"Try not to break the decibel levels for my sake, Sakura," Ino's voice resonated throughout the apartment.

"Ino-"

"All right, all right. Hold on a sec."

"Ino-"

"I'm here, already! You're so easy to piss off lately," Ino said from the open doorway where faded blue paint fell off the frame in tiny flakes. Back when Tsunade had announced that their jonin test results would be delayed due to an unexpected ambush at an outpost outside the village, Sakura and Ino had spent hours scraping off the paint with their fingernails. They had put their anxiety to good use, but they hadn't repainted the door afterwards. Now it looked like they had locked a stray dog inside the bathroom with no food or water for a week.

"You look awful," Ino said. "Did a patient die on you?"

"There's a yellow furball in my bathtub," Sakura said.

"Our bathtub."

"Your furball," Sakura said and Ino bent down to pick up the soaked blob of hair.

"Shikamaru was relocated off intensive today," Sakura said and watched Ino dump the hair into the toilet bin with a satisfying plop. "He can accept visitors now."

"I ain't visiting him," Ino said. "He put himself there without my help. He can get out of there without my help too."

Sakura stepped around Ino where the other woman leaned up against the sink with the small of her back. They cleaned the apartment. Their schedules made it hard, but they did. Still, more often than not, the bathroom tended to slip their notice. Both of them preferred to get their hands dirty from killing and not from scrubbing the toilet clean.

"You cheated on him weeks before he cheated on you," Sakura said. "You both messed up on this one. Admit it and reconcile. I'm getting sick of hiding behind food stalls when I see him on the street."

"I never told you to do that."

"Not out loud," Sakura said and opened the cabinet beneath the sink. She pulled out a freshly laundered towel. It was the same navy blue color that dominated the couch pillows in the living room. Color coordination was Ino's patented obsessive compulsive disorder. Sakura had learned early on to let Ino do the shopping after one incident where she had returned home beige curtains and Ino had nearly gutted her. The salesman at the store had recommended the beige color and claimed that it was softer than eggshell and meshed with a bigger variety of colors than eggshell did, but of course Ino knew better than the man who was educated to know best.

"Gonna use that towel or can I shove it down your throat?" Ino asked.

"Gonna use it. Besides, I don't remember you and Shikamaru going exclusive," Sakura told Ino. "Last thing I heard you were barely past the eye-flickering phase, so how could either of you cheat on the other if there was no relationship to start with?"

"The what phase?" Ino asked.

"Just ask the guy to be your boyfriend."

"Boyfriend," Ino said. "You make it sound so lovey-dovey. We fuck. That's what there is to it."

"Past tense," Sakura reminded her blonde friend. "You used to fuck, remember? Now get out, so I can shower."

She had the day off tomorrow. Thank God, she had the day off tomorrow.

"Did you know that condoms were originally made of animal intestines?"

There was no God. She had the day off, but there was no God. Sakura took her eyes off the eagle that was circling the air above training ground three where Konohamaru and his genin teammates were sweating bullets practicing together with their sensei for the upcoming chunin exam.

"Sex Ed 101?" she asked Sai and spared him an uninterested glance.

He shook his head. "Health and Sex: The Natural Symbiosis."

"Really," she said. Was there a bookstore somewhere dedicated to that sort of shitty reading material? There probably was. Naruto had suggested that the three of them should stop by and watch Konohamaru's training session. They all had the day off, and it would give Konohamaru a major ego boost. Sakura had been sorely tempted to point out that the last thing the boy needed was a major ego anything, but her schedule had been disappointingly empty before Naruto had showed up. She wasn't used to days off. None of them were.

"Did you know that men who watch porn produce a greater amount of sperm?" Naruto asked.

"I haven't come across any passages in my books that have claimed such," Sai said out loud. He didn't take his eyes off the sketchpad in his lap, but he scrunched his brow in a way that was extremely expressive for him.

"Your collection sucks," Naruto said and picked up a small pebble from the ground. He threw it aimlessly in the direction of the paler boy. It missed, horribly, and hit the gnarly surface of the tree root Sai sat perched upon. Sitting on the root, he was elevated above the ground with one leg dangling back and forth in empty air and the other folded up beneath his body. Sakura would have laughed if Naruto's miss hadn't been intentional.

"Of course it sucks when Kakashi-sensei is responsible for over half of it," Sakura said and defended Sai's tacky reading material for God knows what reason. Naruto sent Sakura a sly look There was a break in the conversation; a silence in which the sound of Sai's pen sweeping over the page was only heard. Then Sakura broke the silence.

"Did you know that in most recorded cases of penile fracture the woman was the one who was on top?"

Naruto shot her a baffled look. "Pencil what?"

"Your dick snaps in half," she said and slipped from medic-mode into man-mode. Naruto blanched and Sai looked up from his sketchpad.

"That is not possible," he said.

"No," Sakura agreed. "But I bet you that I can be the first person ever to make it possible if you don't stop bringing up these conversations in public."

Sakura looked back at the center of the training ground just in time to see Konohamaru tackle the petite brunette of his team to the ground. Sakura could easily recall how she had constantly strived for Kakashi's approval as a genin and later chunin. Now, as she had his approval for good, she had no one else to impress but herself. It was disappointing in a way. You had to find your motivation elsewhere, and you had to be in charge of it yourself. Sasuke, the Uchiha prodigy himself, fit the example perfectly.

"Don't do that," Naruto said and brought Sakura back from her musings.

"Don't do what?" she asked.

"Naruto," Sai stepped in. "The boy is calling out for your attention. You might want to go to him."

Sakura blocked out Naruto's response and Konohamaru's insistent yelling across the field. Her attention was on Sai. Perhaps Sai was more integrated in their lives than what she had previously given him credit for. Perhaps he had heard the silent conversation between her and Naruto, too?

"You get a look in your eyes when you think about him," Sai said. "Naruto gets the same look. It's faraway. Pensive. You don't like speaking about it, but you think a lot about it."

"Thanks," she said. Sai stared at her for a long time.

"You pick your own destiny. Am I not right?" he asked.

"Ask me that later," she said with a yawn. "When it's not nine in the morning."

"What difference does the time of the day make?"

"What are you drawing?" she changed the subject and spared Naruto a look when he got up and took off in a run towards Konohamaru and his team. He had stayed to hear the conversation between her and Sai, she realized.

"It's part of a concept I am working on," Sai said.

"What's the concept?"

"Color and light."

Give her a tree and she could beatit into splinters with one precise hit. Give her a concept named color and she wouldn't know what to do with it. There was a change in the air, almost as if the air rolled in on itself, and then Neji popped up out of nowhere in front of her and Sai. When anybody popped up out of nowhere, it was never a good sign. Sakura had long ago become too jaded to think otherwise.

"Neji," she greeted him.

"The Hokage wishes to see you and Naruto," he said. His eyes scouted the area and found Naruto. Naruto noticed him around the same time, and the blond turned around to say his goodbye to Konohamaru and his team. Slowly, Sakura got up from her position on the ground and sent Sai a wary glance to see his reaction to being excluded. As she should have known, there was none. He didn't see it as exclusion. He saw it as a fact. Neji waited until Naruto had reached the group, before he gave out more information. The usual grin on Naruto's tanned face had faded away the moment he had come close enough to pick up on the tense atmosphere.

"Uchiha Itachi has returned," Neji said in a tone that didn't fit the words. Sakura felt all blood in her body rush south. Next to her Naruto stood ramrod straight. There really was no God.


	2. Chapter One

**A/N: **Edited November 7, 2013

_If you are interested in my original novels and works, check out this site on facebook: /arfrederiksen_

* * *

**Narcissus  
**By Frozzy

* * *

**Chapter One: **

It was like waking up to a bad hair day. You didn't know what to do, but you knew that something had to be done and it had to be done fast. Sakura was a realistic person. Romanticized notions were bull. Savagely killing people on a regular basis ruined something inside of you. It took a small bite out of you each time that you twisted a blade and took a life, because what else did you take? The promise of a family? Of a child? A legacy? You didn't just take a body. You took a future. Sakura knew that. Her point of no return had been Ichiro, back when she had been a jonin rookie and she had met Uchiha Itachi by chance. Thinking of Itachi, her insides threatened to crawl up her throat and escape her body.

"Why?" Naruto asked.

"Naruto," Tsunade began wearily. "That's confidential and not for you to know. What you need to know is that Uchiha Itachi has been reinstated as an operating member of ANBU and since both you and Sakura occasionally do crossover missions with ANBU and are formerly-"

"That's bullshit! How the hell can that traitor be reinstated as anything!"

"Naruto," Sakura said, but her heart went out to him. Tsunade was dropping protocol. The law proclaimed, and did so very clearly, that missing-nins who were either retrieved by ANBU or returned of their own free will, were to be put before the Council in a private setting no matter what the circumstances were in each individual case. Uchiha Itachi was not a man you pictured that the Hokage would drop protocol for. Big pieces of the puzzle had been shoved under the rug and if Sakura had had a broom nearby, she would have swept them back out into the open, because something was horribly off. Uchiha Itachi was now a reestablished citizen of Konoha.

"But it-"

"Naruto!" Tsunade finally snapped. Sakura had seen it coming, but still flinched at the lash of tongue. "My decisions are final. Neither of you have any say in this."

"That's-"

"Bullshit?" Tsunade finished for him. Naruto deflated. Sakura could see the moment where he stepped down and accepted the situation.

"As I was saying," Tsunade continued. "Both of you are known to occasionally work on missions that under normal circumstances are strictly reserved for official ANBU operators. I trust both of you to act accordingly, and that means professionally and not childishly, should you in the future happen to-"

"Did you ask him about Sasuke?" Naruto asked.

Sakura pictured a dead bird hitting the floor with a loud splat.

"No," Tsunade answered.

"What did you ask him about then?"

"Naruto," Sakura said, appalled by his lack of respect. "You're-"

"It's okay, Sakura," Tsunade said. "The brat never shuts up and he's not gonna do it this time either. What would you have wanted me to ask him, Naruto? If he has killed Sasuke yet? Because as we can all see, Sasuke surely hasn't killed him."

Tsunade's point was glaringly obvious and Naruto's silence confirmed it. With Itachi alive, the Sasuke was most likely dead. Sakura felt that she should have been more upset than what she was.

"You can't really expect us not to question this particular decision of yours," Sakura said to her mentor, appealing to the older woman's logical sense. They had been trying to track down Itachi for years with every intention of shoving a kunai through his blackened heart whenever they got to him.

"I summoned you here to-"

"-make sure we didn't kill the bastard when we saw him inside the village," Naruto finished. The lack of reaction from Tsunade was answer enough. Naruto had hit jackpot.

"We're done here," Tsunade said." Naruto, you're dismissed. Sakura, you stay."

Naruto left without further ado. Sakura was proud that he didn't slam the door. After he had left, Tsunade turned to Sakura.

"I know for a fact that you have successfully been restoring a good portion of Kakashi's decreasing eyesight on his left eye. Am I correct?" she asked, leveling Sakura with a scrutinizing look that made her feel like a child again.

"I have been practicing on a procedure that-"

"Don't sell yourself short," Tsunade said. "Three-quarters of the damage within the retina have been made undone with whatever technique you have developed over the last many months and yes, I have studied the result myself and what you have achieved is very impressive, Sakura."

"I have to do two regular sessions a month," Sakura said. "When he uses the technique, it specifically singles out and re-attacks the impaired cells that I have already healed. He needs to completely stop using the Sharingan if my technique is to have any permanent effect."

"I have a mission for you," Tsunade said. "And you may be very much averse to what I am about to demand of you, but you know I wouldn't ever ask if I didn't have a valid reason."

"What is the mission?"

"I want you to try applying your technique to Itachi."

"What? Itachi? You want me to… Uchiha? Hokage-sama, I understand that he's a citizen now, and that his wellbeing is the responsibility of the hospital, but why should we heal the damage he has inflicted upon himself while he fought against-"

"This is not open for negotiation, Sakura," Tsunade said and sat up in her chair with enough force to make it teeter on its legs. Sakura's mouth snapped shut. Tsunade had a harder time ignoring the words of Sakura than the words of Naruto. Sakura knew that herself. Tsunade had a soft spot for both of them, but Sakura could reason and argue for her case without it coming off as too enthusiastically or optimistically. Still, for some reason, Sakura didn't feel like pushing this. Tsunade sensed it, and the older woman gave her former apprentice a thankful nod.

"Starting tomorrow you will work on applying your technique to Itachi's eyes," she said. "Report to the hospital tomorrow at nine."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

* * *

"Ino? You here?" Sakura called out as she stepped across the threshold to the apartment. She shut the door behind her with the back of her foot.

"Waxing," Ino's voice came from behind the closed door of the bathroom. "Did you know we had a whole bunch of unused strips underneath the sink?"

"No," Sakura yelled back and slid out of her sandals. She plopped them down onto jumbled pile of mixed footwear next to the door. The news hadn't gotten around yet, she thought. If Ino knew Itachi had returned, she wouldn't be waxing her legs. She would have assaulted Sakura the moment that she got home. Itachi's return was the headliner of the decade, and Sakura had been thrown right into the hot spot of it.

"Has Naruto been here?"

"No."

"Sai?"

There was the sound of the lock sliding out of place and then Ino emerged from the bathroom. She was wiping down her legs with a towel.

"I thought you were already with them?" the blonde asked.

"Something came up," Sakura said. "You want leftover pizza for dinner or do you want to run down to the grocery store?"

"Pizza."

"Chouji's food teachings are bad for you."

"And how many times a week do you go to Ichiraku's?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Good. Now slap a piece of that over here," Ino said. "I skipped breakfast."

"With or without garlic?" Sakura asked.

"Without," Ino answered. "Definitely without."

"How about we share that one?"

"Neither of us likes garlic," Ino said, but nodded her consent. "Did we have Naruto over for dinner again?"

"Naruto doesn't know of leftovers," Sakura said. "I bet on Lee. He's a garlic type."

It was midnight, twelve hours after the impact of the news, when Sakura's calm broke and she knew just who she needed to talk to.

* * *

Hatake Kakashi was a man of many uncertainties. When it rained, he never knew if he should bring the umbrella or not. When a juice carton stood mangled on its shelf in the grocery store, he never knew if he should buy it, or if he should pick the one behind it. When a black cat crossed the street, he never knew if he should believe in superstition and prepare himself for years of bad luck to come, or if he should brush it off like regular, sane people would do. He fretted. He did. But when it knocked on his door a quarter to midnight on a regular Monday in late June, he knew without any uncertainty who he would find outside.

"I figured you would drop by," he said.

"She told you?" Sakura asked. She stormed past him and into his apartment. He didn't bother to comment on it. She had been there enough times. She didn't need an invitation to go inside anymore.

"Consulted would be more like it," he said and closed the door after her. He watched her flop down on his tattered, old couch with a weight on her shoulders that shouldn't have been there. He had a soft spot for his only female student. Genma could spend whole evenings on hammering that fact into his head and make him admit that he was a pussy.

"Why didn't you tell me she's been studying the progress we've made on your eye?" Sakura asked.

"The progress you've made," he corrected her, "and you would have thrown a fit if I had told you."

"What's going on?" she asked. "What's really going on?"

"What makes you think I would know?"

"You're the Hokage's advisor," she said. "What else do you two spend whole afternoons on discussing?"

"Liquid dieting."

"Kakashi. Cut the crap."

Scratching the back of his head, he gave his ex-student a regretful look.

"I can't tell you, Sakura."

"Why the hell not?"

"Sakura-"

"No, I mean it," she said. Her voice took on a hysterical edge. "You can't expect me to recklessly heal the same eyes that have tried to kill me and my friends on more occasions than what I can count on my ten fingers, and then refuse totell me why the man deserves that kind of generosity. Why I should do that for him. I'm the one who will be risking that he chops my head off when I turn my back on him! I deserve answers!"

He understood why she was upset, but she had come to him seeking reassurance, so he couldn't tell her that 'yes, you are absolutely right', because that wouldn't reassure her at all.

"He's not gonna chop your head off," he said instead. Killing off hysterical and illogical worries was the easiest place to start.

"And how do you know that?" Sakura asked.

"Sakura, be reasonable," he said. "That would do him no good in his position."

"Why would he care about that?" she asked and sunk further down into the cushions of his couch. "And to make it clear, his position should be down in a basement alone with Ibiki-san. This is wrong, Kakashi. It's like welcoming Uchiha Madara back, knowing what his plans are for Konoha."

She couldn't have known how spot on that comparison was.

"I'm not the one who should be hearing this," Kakashi said.

"Tsunade-sama won't listen," the woman on his couch sighed. "She's-"

"-running the village like she has done for many prosperous years," Kakashi said. "Let her do her job, Sakura. You'll find that she knows her way around it better than you do."

Have a little faith, was what he was really saying, but that was easy for him to say when he knew things that she didn't. They were all bad men, Kakashi thought. Not just Itachi. Once you knew that, then Uchiha Itachi no longer monopolized the title of monster, but became one of the many different monsters that lived beneath the beds of Konoha.

"I'm being irrational, aren't I?" Sakura asked.

Looking down at her slumped form, Kakashi made a quick decision and sat down on the cushions next to her.

"No," he said. "Not really."

She nodded, her eyes taking on a faraway look. "I haven't been able to find Naruto all day."

"He took off earlier," Kakashi told her, wisely keeping the fact unsaid that Kakashi himself was the one who had sent the blond man away to clear his head in the first place. Should he feel flattered that both of his ex-students sought him out when their lives tumbled down on their heads? Probably. But right now, with a distraught woman sitting on his couch that he didn't know how to comfort, he couldn't help but wish to be elsewhere.

"Where did he go?" Sakura asked.

"He'll be back by morning."

There was a short pause in the conversation. Kakashi tried to remember if he had forgotten to water his out-of-town neighbor's plants that day. Then Sakura bumped her shoulder against his and his attention was back on her.

"You really can't tell me?" she tried one last time, her voice beseeching.

"No," he smiled underneath his mask and reached out to ruffle her hair with his ungloved hand.

Because Madara was dead, his decaying skull buried somewhere up in the mountains beneath earth and stone, and that was not his part to tell.

* * *

She had been standing outside the door for a full minute, quietly consoling herself with the fact that if Uchiha snapped her neck, Kakashi would avenge her. It was ridiculous, because she knew that Itachi had sensed her arrival already. He was messed up in the head, but he was still incredibly skilled.

Sakura was not a wuss. She wasn't a wuss, but it took her three tries before she finally pushed the door open. In the crammed space of medical room 4A, Itachi stood and waited for her. He was standing by the window, giving her a full and unobstructed view of his profile and straight posture. There was no wide hat to obscure his face, no thick outer clothes to swallow his body, and with her hand still on the doorknob, Sakura through that he looked naked. Human. He looked approachable. And that was a big, fat lie Sakura would never buy. Hoisting her personal bag of medical remedies and instruments higher up on her arm, she cleared her throat and watched the ex-criminal's head give a small jerk in her direction.

"Uchiha-san," she said and broke the silence with a voice that was as stiff as a board. "I apologize for being late.

He inclined his head in acknowledgement and she continued before he could call her bluff.

"Lie down on the bed and we can get started, please."

He turned his head towards her, fully this time, and eyes that looked so much like Sasuke's took their time roaming her face. His Sharingan was off. It made sense since the two of them weren't officially playing for opposite teams anymore. Unofficially she would choke the man to death with her hair band, and she was sure he would return the favor just as easily.

"I understand that this must be uncomfortable for you," Itachi said. Sakura had to remind herself that he was her patient and that this wasn't an interrogation room. She had to be professional. She had to be politically correct_,_ and it was just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. This whole scenario was wrong.

"I'm fine, thank you," she replied. This was her element. She controlled it.

"Lie down, please," she said again and crossed the room in three swift strides that put her right next to the bed. She let her medical bag fall to the floor with a heavy thud. The stare Itachi gave her was bland and detached, and he would so slice his blade through all tendons in her neck if the opportunity presented itself. She knew it. Perhaps it was a good thing that he seemed disinclined to move from his spot by the window. It gave her time to recuperate from the bucket of ice cold fear that had just been dumped on her.

"Do you want me to fix your eyes anytime soon, or do you want to remain blind?" she asked him when he still didn't move. She fisted her hands in the loose fabric of her uniform, so she wouldn't reach out and break the expensive inventory.

"I did not ask for this," he said.

Sakura's hands uncurled themselves by her sides.

"Excuse me?"

He moved away from the window and sat down on the bed.

"Great," Sakura said. She creased her brow. It was hard to fall into her routine and begin the treatment. She couldn't pretend that the man lying on the bedspread before her was a regular patient. He was a patient who would break her wrist if she approached him too suddenly and quickly.

"Let's get started," she said to herself. "Will you turn on your Sharingan?"

Her voice was surprisingly steady considering what she had just requested. When all she got in return was a pair of dull, black eyes that stared back at her, she figured that she had to explain herself. After all, who outright asked an Uchiha to turn on his most deadly weapon, so he or she could examine the working mechanics of said weapon?

"I need to see how your specific Sharingan works on a cellular level before I can surmise the range of inflicted damage," she explained. "Dojutsu techniques vary from one individual to another. Much like chakra signatures they have their own unique flow of energy. It's that flow of energy that disrupts the natural working order of the nervous system that is connected to your vision. It messes it up. Tears at it. You see?"

Averting his eyes to look up at the ceiling and not at her, Itachi activated the Sharingan. He was the type of patient who wanted things explained. Sakura should have known that from the beginning. She realized with some astonishment that unlike Kakashi, Itachi's Sharingan didn't snap from black to red like it had an on and off button. It blended. The ice cold fear was back, sitting heavily in the center of her chest and pushing inwards, but she pushed it away. She was working on a patient. She carefully reached out, and touched Itachi's temples with two fingers on each side, praying that her hands wouldn't burst open with oozing sores. For some reason, she had expected his skin to be cold with death, but it was warm like any other human body. Stupid. Of course, it was.

"Turn it off," she told him. "Please."

He did as she asked. The flow of energies was crazy. It was the most advanced Sharingan Sakura had been privy to. So was the wreckage that had been done to the cells of the eyes. The damage was the biggest she had ever seen in any medical situation, and Sakura admired how Itachi didn't even flinch at the pain of activating and deactivating the Sharingan.

"Back on again, please," she said. She almost felt bad for asking it. "And off again."

His closed his eyes after the last deactivation, but not because Sakura had asked him to do it.

"You should have gone to a healer sooner," she said, quickly moving on. "Some damage is beyond repair. I can heal most of it over a longer period, but eventually you'll ruin my work, since I doubt you'll stop using the Sharingan entirely. For my healing technique to be permanent, you must stop using the Sharingan forever. I'll alleviate some of the pain now, but I can't do much at the moment. I need more time to get a better understanding of your Sharingan, before I go into the intricate part of the healing process."

"Your heart rate is too fast," Itachi said.

"What?"

"You're not fine," he said and slowly cracked one eye open to look at her pallid face. "You're nervous."

She wasn't nervous. She was terrified and horrified. Terrified of what she was doing and horrified that she wanted to do it. Pushing all other thoughts aside, Sakura put her hands into position. She let her cool chakra flood his and dived below layers of damage like you would disinfect a wound by removing all sand and dirt. The wound would be clean, but it wouldn't be healed. It sounded easy, but it wasn't. The hardest part was to navigate in between the many mechanisms of the genetically inherited weapon. She had to be careful not to damage any of the separate mechanisms of the eye that had nothing to do with the Sharingan. It was a complex process, like the weaving of a colorful carpet. For thirty minutes, she scraped away all the sand and dirt that she could find. Then, like being on a rollercoaster that was put to a sudden halt, she was back in her own head. She stepped away from the bed and cracked the joints in her neck.

"That's what I can do for now," she said in a raspy voice. She picked up her medical bag from the floor and placed it on the small table next to the bed. She opened it and rummaged around for her painkillers. She had a killer headache. Itachi's eyes were a real piece of art.

"I met a healer a while back," Itachi's said and answered one of Sakura's earlier questions. "She said the damage was irreversible. She also said it was my own stupid fault."

Sakura might not have remembered much from her mission with the now deceased Ichiro, but she remembered the part where she had gotten pathetically drunk and Uchiha Itachi had been there to witness how bad she had been at holding her liquor and her tongue. Itachi moved his body into an upright position on the bed. The old bedsprings creaked underneath the weight. Sakura had been that healer. Sakura had told him that the damage had been irreversible. She had lied, naturally. Now the lie had come back to bite her in the ass.

"Let us hope for us both that she was wrong," she said and pretended to be stupid. "We need a date for the next treatment. How about Wednesday next week? Same time as this one?"

Itachi didn't answer.

"Look," Sakura said. "What do you want? Yes, I said that to you. Once. It was obviously a lie. Okay?"

"I can manage Wednesday," Itachi said. Sakura wanted to bash his head in. Or her own head.

"Good," she said and ended their session on an authoritative note. "Try not to overexert your eyes until we meet up again. I can't why you would, since you're not doing missions yet."

She had reached the secretary's desk out in the hall when she had to reroute and take a trip to the bathrooms. She threw up her breakfast and fought back flashbacks from her childhood; flashbacks from a time where life had been without any conflicts and backhanded motives.


	3. Chapter Two

**A/N: **Edited November 8, 2013

_If you are interested in my original novels and __works, check out this site on facebook: /arfrederiksen_

* * *

**Narcissus  
**By Frozzy

* * *

**Chapter Two**

_**Grass Country – approx. thirteen months ago**_

He was sick. He had been for years, and that was his excuse.

"Saké."

"Ya sure, missy?"

Dragging out Madara's death until the last of his little brother had been gobbled up by the demons inside of him wasn't an option anymore. Madara had to die now. Itachi couldn't wait anymore. He would go blind if he did, and then he would be of no use. In a way, Itachi was fine with cutting everything short. Or shorter. A decade wasn't in any way short. From his point of view, dragging it out for this long had never been a preferable option. It had never been the option that he would have had chosen if the Council had wanted his say on the mission they had allotted him years ago. Regrettably, pawns were never at liberty to object. Now, he had killed Madara and broken the original mission objective. The end result was the same, but his orders hadn't been to kill Madara. His orders had been to get his brother to kill Madara.

"Anythin' else, sir?"

"No," he answered the barkeeper. The woman's head gave a small jerk in his direction. Being who she was, the longtime friend of the blond Jinchuuriki and his little brother's former teammate, Itachi was rather unimpressed that the young woman hadn't sensed his presence upon her arrival half an hour ago. He hadn't masked his chakra that well at the time, and he had been even less impressed when she had flopped down on the chair next to his. Now, she had finally recognized him.

"I would not cause a commotion if I were in your situation," he said to her after the barkeeper had tottered off to the back of the bar and couldn't overhear their exchanged words. The woman's entire body language gave off the vibe that she wanted to bolt from the room. Itachi wasn't in the mood to track her down and silence her. That would be too much trouble. He would ease her petty concerns instead.

"I do not intend to harm you," he said.

"I find that 'ard to believe," she said with a small sneer on her face. Her voice had a slur to it. She was a lightweight. She slid off her chair and swayed unsteadily on the ground where she stood. She couldn't have known how well and truly drunk she was. She would pass out any moment now if the slur in her voice was any indication. Unprofessional was the word, Itachi thought. If she was this far away from Konoha on her own, she ought to be alert even if she was off duty. In all of their earlier interactions, she had never struck him as amateurish. He was never wrong with first impressions.

"You do?" he asked.

"And for the record, you should know tha' it's your own stupid fault that you're goin' blind. Any idiot knows tha' channeling chakra through your eyes messes up the nerves unless you know how to balance it out."

The situation didn't really call for amusement, not when Itachi had thought that he had kept his eye condition unknown to anyone but himself, but when the petite woman attempted to spear him with an indignant look and instead ended up shooting straight for the floor in a flurry of limbs, Itachi felt entertained. The amusement was quickly smothered by irritation as the commotion caught the attention of the barkeeper.

"That yers?" the large man asked Itachi and looked down at the woman who had passed out on his floor.

"No," he answered. The woman was an enigma, but that was understandable when you kept in mind that she had been surrounded by enigmas ever since graduating from the Academy. Itachi wasn't stupid. He kept his eyes on those who caught them. Sasuke's Team 7 was worthy of his attention. Itachi was being a sap, Kisame would have said if he had been there. Itachi worked best solo, all of them did, but there were perks to having someone at your back.

"Ya happen to know where she's staying?" the barkeeper asked him again. The man wasn't going to let this go, Itachi thought. He had seen them talk, and he wanted the woman off his floor and out of his bar. Itachi was the most obvious solution to that.

"No."

"But ya do know her?" the barkeeper asked, having caught onto the monotone lies Itachi was feeding him. "I can't have her lying around 'ere. I've got a bar to manage, sir."

The Uchiha got up from his seat and turned towards the exit. He couldn't chop off someone's head when he was pretending to be a merchant.

* * *

_**Fire Country – present day**_

Yesterday, Tsunade had made Itachi's return to Konoha official. Needless to say, the public response had been negative. Today, Sakura herself was feeling negative and the reason was almost the same.

"And you keep that cast on. You hear me, Kiba?"

"Yeah, yeah," Kiba said.

"You keep it on for four days at minimum," Sakura said and carefully readjusted the bandages on Kiba's right arm. "I don't want turn up at work here on Monday and have to drag your ass back here because you didn't follow basic wound care instructions. You got that?"

"I think you're the only nurse on this floor who has ever threatened me," Kiba said from where he was sitting on the table with Sakura standing halfway in between his legs while she probed at his injuries. Unhindered, of course, because you didn't delay the schedule of the Hokage's favorite girl.

"Somehow I doubt that," Sakura answered and ignored the leer Kiba threw her way.

"It's kind of a turn on actually- _ach_, gentle, gentle!"

"Hitting on my staff during work hours, Inuzuka?" a third voice butted into the conversation. Tsunade found great pleasure in patrolling the hospital on a regular basis, so her random appearances weren't all that random once you got the hang of it. It was still a bit disconcerting to have her walk in on you, but you got used to it. Like now, Sakura thought as the Hokage strolled into the room and gave off the vibe that here was woman who couldn't be trifled with. It was the same vibe that Sakura had adopted, she was often told.

"She was my girlfriend for half a year. I have my privileges," Kiba said and Sakura smiled.

"Stop wasting my staff's time," Tsunade said. "You're all patched up, so get going."

Sakura backed up and the taller man slid down from the table. For half a second she let herself admire the thick, corded muscles of his thighs as they moved. Privileges, Kiba had said. He did have a point.

"Oh and Kiba," Tsunade said before the man took the last step out of the room. "Your mission report should have been on my desk twelve hours ago, but I'm willing to bet that you're already aware of that and have a valid reason for the delay."

He fed her a smirk and held up his injured right arm: "I'm not a very good lefty."

"Keep it steady," Sakura said.

"One hour, Inuzuka," Tsunade said, a lot less worried about his health than the younger medic. "Or you're on suspension for a month."

He laughed his ass off while he left, and Sakura could remember why she had broken it off with him after they had moved past the awesomegodfuckyes_yes _stage. Sakura was by no means a promiscuous person, but she wasn't a lilywhite saint either and Kiba really had been good for mostly just one thing and that thing hadn't been intellectual debates. She had moved past the honeymoon phase whereas Kiba had been caught in it. If the city gossip was true, Tenten could vouch for that nowadays. Was she jealous? Tenten was getting laid by someone who ripped the floor away underneath your feet with a slow blink and a buttery smile. Sakura could have used a little bit of that these days to keep her spirits up.

"Wonder boy is having you walk down memory lane?"

"No," Sakura said and tried to act offended.

"That aside," Tsunade began. "I came here to talk, Sakura. You will start up a journal. A medical journal documenting your sessions with Uchiha. You have your second one today, am I right?"

"In two hours," Sakura said and tried to make sense of what she was being asked to do. "I never kept a journal over Kakashi."

"Your work with Kakashi was done in your personal time," Tsunade said. "You made that decision of your own accord and worked with him outside your hours at the hospital. The circumstances are vastly different. I don't particularly care how you do it, but I want your sessions written down on paper. Documented. It doesn't have to be a journal. We can call it résumés if that sits better with you."

"Why would that sit better with me?" Sakura asked.

"I don't know, Sakura. Would that sit better with you?" Tsunade asked and the patronizing tone was a bit overdone. "I trust you to do a thorough job, Haruno-san."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

Tsunade sighed. "I wish I could boycott formalities."

Naruto had been an examiner at the jonin exams last year and had done the job well. So well that Tsunade had begun to take him seriously as a possible candidate for the position of Hokage. He was brilliant. That was a known fact. But there was a difference between brilliant and successful.

"This a private conversation or can I interrupt?"

The two women turned their heads to look at the doorway where Shikamaru stood with blood running down his right arm.

"And you just got out of here," Sakura said and motioned for Shikamaru to enter.

"What can I say," he said. "Neji fights dirty."

"We've been over this multiple times before," Sakura said. "Have you ever considered that he might just be the better fighter, perhaps? Consider that and stop these stupid cockfights, please."

"Boys never learn," Tsunade said from the sideline and left it up to Sakura to patch up the jonin.

* * *

When Tsunade entered her office half an hour later, Kakashi sat cross-legged on one of the windowsills. She couldn't help but wish that he had been sitting there for ages, bored out of his mind waiting for her.

"I'm starting to think I need to put a lock on this door," she said.

"I used the window."

Tsunade crossed the room in six quick strides and sat down in her chair with a long exhale. It wasn't fair that she couldn't take a day off. She would slice up her face with a blunt razor before anybody saw her crying, but sometimes she wished it could have been that easy. If she could just sit down and cry until somebody took pity on her and sent her away to a remote island. When you constantly had to worry about not making the wrong choices, about how your actions spoke for you, and then also had to defend the validity of your decisions, it wasn't easy to be the ruler of a village. It would be nice to just once worry about what to buy for breakfast and not about who should be assassinated next and in what order.

"He still doesn't want to tell?" Kakashi asked.

"He seems to think it's better this way," she said and rubbed her tired eyes. Kakashi slid off the windowsill and sat down in one of the chairs that were lined up near Tsunade's desk. The rundown piece of furniture creaked beneath his weight, but didn't fall apart. Was furniture considered office supply? If so, she should get herself some new chairs.

"It doesn't seem very fair," Kakashi said and spread his legs apart to rest his elbows on his knees.

"I don't think he cares about that," Tsunade said.

"She's holding up?" Kakashi asked.

"Just like you said she would. She's tough. Less can be said for everyone else."

"She was always dutiful," Kakashi said with a nod.

"Something she didn't learn from you," Tsunade said and opened the second drawer of her desk to pull out a large stack of folders that she had asked Shizune to deliver to the office earlier that day. "And now you can kindly get out of my office before I assign this load of missions to you."

"You were ready to take his word for it," Kakashi said.

"He deserves that much," she answered.

"It's a rash decision to make."

"You want go grave digging, is that it? See if Madara's body is truly buried up in the mountains like Itachi claims it is?"

"It'll raise suspicion that he never underwent a Council hearing."

"All I've been doing lately have raised suspicion," Tsunade said and opened the first file that lay on top of the pile. "But, yes, I get your point. Still, cut me some slack here and don't give me that crap of yours, Kakashi."

"What crap?"

He said it so nonchalantly that it pissed her off. There was a reason people always underestimated the man. He was too much of a pain in the ass to be taken seriously when all you wanted to do was to bash his face in. It was a clever technique. He played and manipulated his enemies.

"Get lost, Hatake. Spare me the ambiguous bullshit you like so much," Tsunade said. She could have been speaking to thin air; he disappeared that fast. She wasn't in the mood for anything non-simple these days and much less in the mood for dealing with an ass of an advisor. It didn't matter if he was right or not.

* * *

"You're on meds."

They had been halfway into the session when Sakura had noticed that something had been off.

"You're on meds," she said again and turned towards the small bedside table. She flipped open the notebook that she had placed there before the session had begun.

"Is that a journal?" Itachi asked.

"No," Sakura said. She prepared to scribble down the newly discovered bit of information when there was a shift in the air behind her. With her back turned on him, she didn't have time to make a counteractive move before a fist in her hair forced her down to the floor. Her knees scraped against the ground and her right cheek was pressed into the cold linoleum. Another body, a stronger body, held her down. Fuck, she thought with regret raining down on her from all over. She shouldn't have lied. Why had she lied? She let her body go into lockdown mode. She could try to twist free, but she knew from experience that trying to escape this kind of grip would only hurt her more. She was better off like this, playing the living dead.

"I would not write that down," Itachi said into her left ear. It was one of her old notebooks that she had found at the bottom of her medical kit, one that was threadbare and threatened to fall apart if you turned the pages too abruptly. She had figured that it was the last place people would expect to find a classified medical journal. Of course Itachi would see straight through that tactic.

"I can't work with an illegally drugged up patient. That's against protocol, not the mention the law," Sakura said. As it was, she couldn't even understand that the man was still coherent with so much medication circulating his blood system.

"Make it be protocol," he said. Sakura laughed and it was a bitter and provocative sound. She had never given much thought to defense mechanisms, but this had to be one of hers.

"You will erase what you have written down," he said.

"I can't forgo an order having come directly from the Hokage herself," she said. The joints in her body ached unpleasantly from the balled up position Itachi kept her in.

"And what order would be?"

"Not your busine-" she broke off when painful pressure was added to the small of her back. She could feel it all the way through to her ribs. Itachi wouldn't kill her, but a little maiming would probably be okay.

"I will let you up," Itachi said and made every word count, "and you will hand me that book."

No. She would make a mad dash out of the room at breakneck-speed.

"What's its nature?" she asked. The situation got really surreal after that.

"You are nosy."

"Some would say that's an asset," she said.

There was a quiet huff behind her that could have been a quiet chuckle.

"You will not speak of this knowledge to anyone," Itachi said. "You will not like the consequences if you do."

Then, like that, Sakura was alone on the floor. Itachi was nowhere in sight; nowhere within the room. Sakura was free from the body that had held her down. She didn't have to look towards the bed to know that her old notebook wouldn't be there. He had taken it.

"Foul play, you thieving bastard," she said to the bare walls of the room and got up from the floor. The former Akatsuki had started a chase that she was going to lose if she pursued it. And the Hokage was gonna make her pursue it. That much was certain.

"Coming down with something?" a voice asked her. It was Kakashi, a blessedly thirty seconds too late. She had sensed him coming – those who could not notice a chakra signature like his when it was unmasked shouldn't be allowed to call themselves professionals – but her head still whipped around towards the window at the sound of his voice. Stupid instinctive gut of his.

"No," she said. "Why would you say that?"

"You're kind of pale," he said and hopped down from the window sill. "Thought you might be sick."

"Must be the weather," she said and started to pack up her stuff. "And speaking of being sick, you can't just pop up like this unless you have an appointment. I've got a schedule to follow and you're delaying me."

"I could be interminably ill."

"I did your quarterly checkup two weeks ago," she said and zipped up her kit. "I would know if you were anything less but perfectly healthy."

They both knew why he was really there, and they both knew she was a horrible liar.

"Pride is a sin," he said.

She barked out a laugh: "So is lust. Who doesn't indulge in that?"

Kakashi's eye crinkled in the corner. "It's not very nice to pick a fight with an old man."

"Give it a few years before you're old enough for that privilege," Sakura said. She hated to admit it, but when she left the room ten minutes later her defeated and gloomy spirit was no longer accompanying her like a second shadow. Kakashi had that effect. Itachi had the opposite effect, she had learned. She should have known nothing so personal about the man.


	4. Chapter Three

**A/N: **Edited November 8, 2013

_If you are interested in my original novels and works, check out this site on facebook: /arfrederiksen_

* * *

**Narcissus  
**By Frozzy

* * *

**Chapter Three**

"You're spoiling an old man doing this."

"It's lunch. I'm not asking you to father my children," Sakura said and peered into the oven and the sticky dough that was slowly beginning to resemble bread. "I ran out of flour at home and your place is the closest. You get free food. Besides, Ino is on a mission and I gotta share my food with someone. I can't grow old and isolated like others."

"Don't I feel privileged now," Kakashi said from his spot by the kitchen table.

"Your humor takes my breath away. You should demand payment for it."

Hiding his amusement behind his mask, Kakashi stood up from his seat.

"Sarcasm is an unflattering trait," he said and stepped around the table. He was unable to sit still for very long as it often was with people of their profession. When you were used to travelling across countries every third week, restlessness became a regular state. Also, Kakashi rarely ever used his kitchen knives for anything else besides practicing his aim. Actual bread being baked in his kitchen made him feel uncomfortable and he thus had to move around to lessen the feeling.

"You would know. Having mastered it at the age of ten and all," Sakura said and cleaned the sink with a damp cloth to remove all traces of flour and other ingredients.

"I didn't know you held me in such high regard," Kakashi said.

"Grab the brush and do the dishes before the dough dries and sticks to everything," Sakura said and gestured towards the large blue bowl and the variety of spoons and knives she had used.

"Shouldn't the one who made a mess of the kitchen be the one to clean it up?" Kakashi asked, but he reached out for the bowl and dropped it into the sink, turning on the hot water and letting it fill the blue plastic.

"No," Sakura said.

"I must be old-fashioned."

"Stuff away the complaints. Free home-baked bread," Sakura reminded the older man.

"Someone's in a bad mood."

"Someone should shut their mouth," she said. She couldn't see his smile, but she could sense it.

"Jokes aside," the older jonin began, "something is on your mind."

She surprised herself by nodding.

"He's sick, you know," she said out loud, playing it off as being an offhanded observation. Kakashi probably wasn't the right person to reveal this particular train of thoughts to, but Sakura would be damned before she could lie to a man that she respected to such a high degree as she did him. He was her guide and her confidante. More so than Tsunade. Sakura had always related better to men.

"Who?" Kakashi asked.

"Itachi," she answered. "Is that why he's back?"

"There needs to be a reason behind his return?"

"You're a horrible liar, Kakashi."

This was Kakashi when he was at his best; blindly agreeing with whatever was said because he felt disinclined to discuss it. Moreover that meant she was on the right track.

"You shouldn't have pulled me into this," she said. Kakashi looked at her and it was the kind of grave look that you only got from him whenever your world was going down the drain, and he felt that he had played a part in it.

"You're at liberty to speak up, Sakura," he said.

"And what? Have somebody else take over what only I can do?" she asked. "I'm not stupid. I'm the only one who can heal his eyes. The technique is too advanced for others. It's too personal. I created it."

"Your options are limited, that's true," he said. She gave him a blank look. His idea of limited had to be her idea of non-existent. Upon seeing the look she was giving him, Kakashi sighed and his shoulders sagged.

"What do you want me to say, Sakura?" he asked. "You are the only one suited for this task and whether you are willing to accept it or not, it's a task that the Hokage has deemed vital for the medicinal development of the village."

"It's Itachi."

"Yes," he said blandly. "It's Itachi."

She waited for him to continue, but obviously he wasn't heading down that road.

"And you don't see where I'm going with this?" she asked. "Why I'm frustrated?"

"I see perfectly well where you're going with this and I'm not saying you're wrong either," he answered her. "But it may not be the best idea to go into this task with a prejudiced mind."

"Prejudiced mind?" she asked. "I grew up with the tales of Uchiha Itachi and how he had brutally slaughtered his entire family. At the Academy, I was told stories of this man's inhuman thirst for death. I was taught to think of him as a monster and anything he has ever done in my presence has always supported that fact. He ruined Team 7. He made Sasuke leave. I have more reason than anyone else to feel prejudiced about this man. Why should I change my perspective when it has served me well so far?"

"Has it?" Kakashi asked. "Has it served you well so far?"

"What are you saying?"

"Saying? I was asking a question," the Copy Ninja said.

"You never just ask questions," Sakura said. "And do that right. You're just smearing it all over the place, apply more soap. Clean is properly. Don't mash it around."

"I know what I'm doing, Sakura-"

"Give me that."

* * *

Sweat poured down her forehead and her muscles had long ago cramped up when the three teammates finally decided to end the sparring session. And that was in spite of Naruto's avid protests that sixty minutes of attack and dodge within a three mile radius was child's play. Sure, it might have been child's play if you had been lazing off at home for the entire afternoon like Naruto had done, but the day that Sakura lazed off would be the day that a black hole descended upon earth and swallowed it whole. That afternoon, she had been off archiving journals and random files for four hours down in the basement of the hospital.

"I call it a tie," Sakura said and singled out a spot on the ground where she sat down and began to massage her sore legs. Konoha was abnormally low on missions and had been for a few months by now. Sakura could only imagine the suppressed energy that rummaged around within Naruto.

"I totally beat you two," Naruto said in between harsh breaths. He plopped down on the ground, and spread out his arms and legs. The position most of all looked like that of a dead bird.

"I was not aware we were fighting to win," Sai said. He was the only one out of the three that was still standing.

"We weren't," Sakura said and wiped sticky sweat off her brow and forehead. "Naruto's being delusional again."

"What, I'm not being-"

"I suppose it has been a while since he has had one of those days," Sai said and deliberately paid Naruto's complaint no mind. Sai's social skills had gone through a major improvement over the last year and his newly found sense of humor, however formal and incomprehensible it could be, was a clear testament to that. Of course, with Naruto often being at the receiving end of it, the blond probably didn't see it as an improvement. Sakura had no problems. She had found a soul mate in Sai and wasn't about to waste the opportunities it presented.

"Ease up there, Naruto," Sakura smiled and cracked an eye open to look at her teammate.

"Indeed," Sai said. "There are too many times in life where you have to accept that which you cannot."

"Yeah, yeah, getting all smart to sound convincing," Naruto said.

"It comes naturally," Sakura said on Sai's behalf.

"I'm sure it does," Naruto sai and leaned up on his elbows, scouting the area. "Hey, Sakura?"

"Hm?"

"Has he said anything about the bastard?"

It didn't take a genius to guess who Naruto was referring to and Sakura had expected this to come up at some point, so she wasn't taken by surprise.

"No."

"Do you think you-"

"You know I can't," she said and stopped him.

"Right," he said after a brief pause. "Right."

"It's getting dark," Sai cut in and made both Naruto and Sakura turn their heads. "We should head home."

"Yeah," Sakura agreed and got up from the ground. She wiped a hand across the smeared dirt on her skirt. She didn't want to look over at Naruto and see the blank expression on his face. She longed for the days back when Team 7 used to go on lousy C-rank missions for a variety of old ladies. Growing up was hard, and she could just as well face the fact that her social network consisted solely of people who wasn't making life any easier for her. All her friends were wrecked.

"No detours for any of you?" she asked.

"No," Naruto and Sai replied in unison.

"I gotta head to my parents' place first," she said when they aimed for the main road that led into town. The two men both stopped and looked at her with confused expressions.

"It's in the other direction," she said.

"Ah, right," Naruto said. "See you tomorrow?"

She nodded, because she didn't know what else to do. He had shut her out.

"Do not get lost in the woods, Sakura-san," Sai said. "It would displease me having to participate in something as trivial as a search team."

The trio split up with two of them going east and one west.

Sakura hadn't walked far before a familiar chakra signature made her stop mid-step in the middle of the road. It was funny how she didn't think twice before she pushed her way through the brushwood by the side of the road. She kept jogging straight ahead until she reached a small clearing in the middle of the looming pines and birches. There she stopped dead in her tracks. Itachi was there. Part of her wanted to yell out to him. God knows where that particular itch came from. It would have been a stupid move, because there was no way that the ex-criminal had missed a stranger's presence out here in the wild. Much less the presence of the woman who had poked around in his eyes for the past two to three weeks. No, he knew she was there. It would only be pitiful if she bolted from the scene now. She was stuck. Great.

"I wasn't aware I had been assigned a supervisor," Itachi's voice travelled across the small space separating them. Kakashi's voice rang loud in Sakura's ears. In that moment it was the one thing that kept her from making a pitiful exit. Prejudices were bad. She knew that. Kakashi had reminded her.

"If that was the case, I wouldn't fit the job description," she answered and kept her voice light and neutral. She could feel safe at the hospital where she owned the territory. This was nobody's territory, neither his nor hers, and they both knew Itachi could easily lord over her if he wished to. She had to keep him from wanting to do so.

"As your medic, I recommend against testing out your vision during the treatment process," she said. "Like I said, for the treatment to be permanent, you can't use the Sharingan. I would appreciate it if you at least didn't use it during the treatment process. Afterwards, I don't care, but I've warned you plenty of times that for the treatment to be permanent, you can't ever use the Sharingan."

She couldn't see it clearly with the distance between them, but she thought she saw him smile.

"And what makes you think that is what I am doing?" he asked and raised his head a little.

"You were in Grass Country," she said and changed the topic. "In that bar."

His head moved another inch, just enough for his eyes to wander aimlessly across the ground close to her feet. By reflex, her legs twitched.

"Is there a point you wish to make?" he asked with no interpretable tone to his voice.

"You were off duty," she said, not sure how to phrase it since she had no idea of how Akatsuki was organized and didn't really want to get any insider tips on it. The corner of his mouth twitched and this time Sakura was sure of it.

"I seem to recall that you must have been too," he said. "However, you may not remember that so clearly yourself."

Could this be considered a sort of weird, twisted progress in their doctor-patient relationship? The topic had nothing to do with his deteriorating vision, but if she looked hard enough, Sakura was sure that she could find a connection in there. Obviously, there was one.

"You weren't sitting empty-handed either," she said. She had never associated Itachi with the word conversational, so it made her uncomfortable to know that his sentences had steadily been growing longer over the past few weeks. If he had been capable of feeling lonely, she would have blamed it on that. People weren't standing in line to befriend the Uchiha.

"I didn't say I were," he replied and turned his head away from her. Almost immediately her eyes were drawn to his neck where she could make out the rough edges of a scar starting right below his ear and disappearing down towards his collarbone where his shirt obscured the rest of the mark. She had walked closer, she realized. For her to make out details like scars, she had crossed the distance between them.

"Why were you there? In Grass?" she asked.

"Business. You should not pursue this matter," he said with his eyes trained on a spot somewhere behind her shoulder. The eyes were Sasuke's, but older. He was Sasuke with a history that didn't involve a past known by all, but a past known by few. He wasn't Sasuke. She was befriending her second Uchiha, this one more fucked up than the other.

"You make me want to," she said. If he was unsatisfied with her honesty, he said nothing. Instead, he reached out and grabbed her hair much like he had done back at the hospital. Sakura let him. This time it was less violent. It was more of a warning. If it kept him talking, she could allow it. This, the way that he could be set off as though there was a special button for it, was something that screamed 'psychosis'.

"You don't know when to stop talking," he said with his hand wound tight around the hair at the back of her head. She wasn't afraid. He wouldn't kill her now. There had been plenty of opportunities in the past. If she didn't think too hard about the stories she had been fed as a child, he didn't scare her more than any other hostile person did. That being said, she wasn't comfortable standing like this, but she could suck it up if it benefitted her in the end. She could pretend that she wasn't seconds away from either fighting back or trying to escape.

"Step back, Itachi," she said instead.

"Using informal speech," he said. "That's new."

He let go, but Sakura doubted that he was following through on her request.

"I have a free spot in my schedule at 8 a.m. tomorrow," she said and acted as if the Uchiha hadn't just manhandled her. "I expect to see you there for our third session."

"I had not planned to be elsewhere."

He had no choice, was what they both knew. As much as Sakura had been taught to loathe the man, her newly acquired view of him as a man who harbored an impressive brain amidst all the blood splatter had begun to undermine the preaching that used to tell her how the Uchiha was a monster. In a way, she would have loved it if he had stayed inhuman to her, but she already knew that her future wasn't heading down that road. Itachi was human. Like everyone else. She had always known that, but it wasn't until now that she had had to face the fact. It wasn't until now that she had proof.

"Was there anything else?" Itachi asked. "The fact that you are still present would indicate that you have not finished your intended business with me."

"I have no more business with you," Sakura said after she had processed the passive aggressive question.

"Then tell me why you are still here?"

She left. There wasn't anything of greater intelligence to say to that.

* * *

The next day arrived too soon. As Sakura walked up the stairs of the hospital to the usual room that was reserved for Itachi's treatments, it felt as though she was walking towards her personal doom. For the past three weeks, her life had revolved solely around the man she was heading towards right now. Sakura didn't whine, but if anybody should accuse her of doing so, she would find it hard to argue against it this time.

"You might want to stop blocking the staircase, Sakura-san."

Neji, Sakura thought when she looked up at the source of the sound.

"Sorry," she said. "I was thinking. I must have stopped walking."

"May I ask about what?"

Sakura rarely ever spoke with the Hyuuga, despite her being long-time friends with both Hinata and Lee. The three were no longer in a team, but they had kept the contact like Naruto and Sakura also had.

"Nothing interesting," Sakura answered his question a little too late.

"The Hokage is looking for you," he said. "I suggest you go see her after your appointment with Uchiha-san."

"Wait, what?" she asked, throwing all prior caution to the wind.

"Do you want me to repeat-"

"No," she said. "How do you know about my work with Itachi?"

As far as she knew, the only outsiders that were aware of her treatments on Itachi were Sai and Naruto, and they knew better than to talk about it to anyone else. Neji opened his mouth to answer at the same time that another person appeared on the already crowded staircase.

"Haruno."

Itachi stood at the top of the stairs with a hand on the banister, looking down at the two Konoha jonin who had been emerged in conversation. Both Sakura and Neji reacted to the unexpected interference, but only Sakura felt her stomach do a disturbed roll when she realized that she had lost track of time.

"Sorry," she said to Neji. "I need to go."

She walked up the stairs to where Itachi stood. She didn't stop, but expected the Uchiha to remove his arm and clear the way for her once she reached the top. He didn't, and Sakura came to an awkward halt in front of his outstretched arm and the hand that was holding onto the banister. She gave him a pointed look, but the pointedness deflated when Itachi's eyes zeroed in on her face and she was hit with a sudden understanding of why all those girls, herself included, had once upon a time fawned so desperately over Sasuke. When an Uchiha's sole attention was focused on you, intensity gained a new meaning. She cleared her throat and reached out towards his arm to make her intention clear. She wanted to pass him, but his arm was in the way. How could he not understand that move, right? But he didn't understand it, and she ended up sanding with her hand suspended in mid-air.

"Uchiha-san," Neji's voice said from somewhere behind Sakura. "Sakura-san will need to pass you in order to commence her work on your eyes."

Itachi dropped his arm, but not without waiting a couple of seconds first. Sakura walked past him and headed on towards the room she had booked for them. She thanked the Gods that Itachi followed her without protest. When they reached the room, he even walked inside without putting up a fight.

"I'm sorry," Sakura said after she had closed the door behind them. "I lost track of time."

Itachi already sat on the bed, and he offered no response. She figured her apology had been accepted.

"Have you felt any regular discomfort in the area since your last treatment?" she asked and sat down next to where the Uchiha lay on the bed with his eyes closed.

"None that have incapacitated me," he answered.

"Elaborate."

One eye cracked open to look at her: "it itches."

"It may simply be the healing process," Sakura explained. "Still, I should-"

"Your heart rate accelerated."

"What?"

"You are uncomfortable," Itachi said, both eyes now open. Itachi was aware of his surroundings in the way that a snake was aware of a potential food source. It bothered Sakura to no end that during their sessions, the Uchiha never failed to point out every single observation about the changes in her body language and voice. He put pressure on her, and she didn't know if he was doing it intentionally or if that was simply part of his subconscious. She had a hard time thinking that he did anything subconsciously, but logically he had to. No human could be aware of every single process behind their thoughts and actions. Some could be more aware than others, but no one could be aware of everything.

"I always am around you," she answered. "Close your eyes, please."

He did as she asked, and she began her work.


	5. Chapter Four

**A/N: **Edited November 10, 2013

_If you are interested in my original novels and works, check out this site on facebook: /arfrederiksen_

* * *

**Narcissus  
**By Frozzy

* * *

**Chapter Four**

This was why Neji had known, Sakura thought.

"It's a clean assassination mission. No hanky panky. But a field medic is obligatory for the S-ranked missions, and I don't believe I can persuade Uchiha to agree to any other medic than you. Neji and Shikamaru already know about your work with Uchiha and had no objections to it, so you can uphold the treatments out in the field," the Hokage said.

Sakura nodded her understanding. She wasn't getting rid of Itachi anytime soon, she thought. At this rate, she would give birth to Itachi's children because it would benefit the country and as much as the idea wasn't epically appalling, she would rather not have it go that far because the Hokage saw it fit.

"I have appointed Itachi the title of Captain," Tsunade said. "In a few days he should contact you about the practical matters of the mission."

Sakura's list of worries was growing larger by the minute. Itachi had been reinstated. Why? Itachi was sick and took prescribed medication. Why? He had threatened her to keep her mouth shut about it. Why? No one had publicly second-guessed the Hokage's intentions concerning Itachi. Why? Kakashi wanted her to give Itachi a chance. Why? When had her life centered itself on Uchiha Itachi and how had it done so? Was she incompetent or was everyone else around her persistent?

"…listening?"

Looking up at the Hokage, Sakura realized that she hadn't paid any attention to what Tsunade had said for the past minute or maybe even longer.

"Young people and their attention span," Tsunade said with a shake of her head.

"Sorry, Hokage-"

"Drop the formalities when we're alone, Sakura."

"Sorry."

"Anyway," Tsunade began. "Are you prepared to accept the mission? You've worked with Shikamaru before, I think?"

"Yes. And yes," Sakura answered. She felt much more comfortable answering the last question.

"Good," Tsunade said. "Status debrief: how are things running along with Itachi?"

"It's good."

The Hokage raised a brow. "That's all?"

"Yes."

Tsunade studied her for a minute longer. If Sakura looked hard enough, she could see disappointment on the woman's face. The suspicion was strongest, but disappointment always struck Sakura especially hard. She always recognized it. The best weapon that any teacher could use against Sakura was her conscience. Guilt was the best motivator, and Sakura would be lying if she said she didn't feel a bit of it now.

"I can't imagine any Uchiha being easy to work with," Tsunade said at last.

"He has become more willing to cooperate. He's experiencing the positive effects of the treatment, and that has probably instilled a better attitude in him," Sakura explained in detail. Yes, she felt guilty. It took roughly five seconds for her to realize that she had stepped up and defended Itachi. Tsunade had implicated he was hard to work with. Sakura had said he wasn't, and that was true. He had never fought her as much as she had expected him to. Maybe he did better with medical procedures than political ones. She could imagine that. He had fled the village and joined an illegal organization. After the war, he had gone off the grid. Now, he had returned to Konoha. It seemed rather likely that he had authority issues.

"Itachi specifically asked for you to be the medic on the mission, Sakura," Tsunade said. "Don't ask me about his reasoning. It's beyond me, because we've got plenty of other medics available who have greater field experience than you and he's unwilling to try on one of those."

"It's a trust issue," Sakura said and surprised herself. "It's his first mission after he has been reinstated. He wants it to go well, and he doesn't trust any of the other medics."

"And he trusts you?" Tsunade asked. Her voice had that edge that Sakura feared more than the woman's deathly strength.

"It's difficult to put your life in the hands of a stranger," she said. "I'm not as much of a stranger as-"

"Answer the question, Sakura."

"As a potential medic for his team, I believe he trusts my skills," she said. "He has firsthand proof that I'm consistent in what I do. I would be the logical choice."

"You do realize he's not Sasuke?" Tsunade asked. Sakura didn't react like the Hokage had probably thought she would. Sasuke didn't have a lot of shock factor anymore, and Sakura thought her weekly interaction with Itachi had a lot to do with it.

"I am aware of that, yes," she answered.

"Good," Tsunade said on a lighter note that made Sakura wonder if she had said the wrong thing. Sasuke was never an issue anybody openly discussed and drew attention to when Sakura and Naruto were present. Sakura had never really understood that. It had been several years – and entire way had passed – and people still thought they would spontaneously combust if Sasuke was mentioned. Personally, Sakura thought her and Naruto deserved more credit than that. They had been young and had been nowhere near the maturity level that they were at now. Sometimes people projected their own feelings regarding Sasuke onto her and Naruto, because it was convenient.

"Now off you go," Tsunade said to Sakura. "I've got work to do."

Sakura left the Hokage's office with an uncanny feeling in her stomach. She felt like she had just given up something that she hadn't been aware of in the first place. She had given up something that she had no idea what was, other than it had been something vital. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. She would never be a philosopher, but she had Kakashi for that part, so it was okay. Still buried in thoughts, Sakura had just exited the Hokage tower when she bumped into Sai.

"Hello Sakura," he greeted her and was unconcerned that she had just rammed her face into his shoulder.

"Sai," she said and rubbed her nose. "Where's Naruto?"

Despite the constant insults and misunderstandings, Naruto and Sai spent most of their spare time together. Sakura wondered if it was from a lack of better things to do or if they liked belittling each other.

"He is chasing a group of genin around the training grounds with Kiba," Sai said.

"He's doing what with Kiba?"

Sai blinked. "He is-"

"No, I heard it. Forget it," Sakura said quickly.

"Are you going on a mission?" Sai asked.

"How do you know?"

"Would there be any other reason for you to visit the Hokage Tower?" he asked.

"The Hokage is my mentor, so yes," Sakura said. "But I am in fact going on a mission."

Sai nodded, but didn't say more.

"You're not gonna ask more?" Sakura asked.

"You don't want me to ask more," Sai said. In a way, Sai was a good conversationalist. He never trespassed on topics you didn't want trespassed. In an entirely different way, that could sometimes be infinitely annoying when you needed criticism and not unconditional harmonization of opinions.

"No. I don't. Thanks," she said and they parted ways without goodbyes. Goodbyes weren't for friends.

* * *

Haruno Sakura was an excellent medic. It was years since Itachi's eyesight had been as clear as it was now. It was years since he had last been able to watch the sky and see specks of stars instead of blurry highlights amidst the black. He was grateful. No. Indebted. He was indebted. Grateful implied that he had a personal interest in the matter, and he didn't.

"She knows what she's doing, doesn't she?"

"Kakashi-san," Itachi greeted the other man. He didn't recall having done anything to invite the man over for a chat, but they were in a public park in the middle of the night. He could leave if it bothered him. Then again, having to summon up the energy to leave was enough of a bother in itself. He was content here. He had spent too much of his life outside in the wilderness to be comfortable inside a city. It would take some time to adjust.

"Do you enjoy being back?" Kakashi asked and walked closer to lean up against the rock that Itachi sat perched upon.

"Yes," Itachi said.

"How are things with Sasuke?"

No matter what everyone else believed, Itachi loved his little brother. He had loved their parents, too.

"We haven't met up since I explained the situation to him," Itachi answered and wondered what had compelled him to answer the question truthfully.

"I wonder what his plans are," Kakashi said. Itachi didn't, but he didn't feel like telling the other jonin. He was sure that his brother had no plans, but was wandering aimlessly about. Sasuke had always been easy to read and predict.

"Also, the Hokage wants to know if you've made up your mind about the position as official advisor," Kakashi said.

"You have declined twice prior to my return, I've been told."

"She just wants to make it official, but I don't believe in titles," Kakashi said. "I'm still an advisor. Which reminds me that in light of Sasuke's declared state as a missing-nin, the Council has brought up the issue of securing the continuation of the Uchiha bloodline. While you're still alive and kicking. Thought you might want to know."

Itachi looked at the other jounin strangely.

"I will not have children," he said.

"Be aware that the topic is under discussion," Kakashi said. "Be prepared before they come knocking on your door."

"I don't appreciate your sarcasm."

"She attaches easily even if she might not realize it," Kakashi said and he sounded different than before. It made Itachi listen. "You should consider very carefully where your actions lead you. In the future, I would advise against you using her for you own benefit. A great deal of people wouldn't be pleased with that arrangement."

"Don't presume to know my intentions," Itachi said and took his eyes off the sky to look at the other jonin. Kakashi looked perfectly relaxed where he stood with his back up against the side of the rock, but Itachi knew that he wasn't. It wasn't his body language, but his voice that told you how serious he was. Itachi worked differently. He let his body talk for him, and kept his voice bland and free from emotion.

"You need someone to do it," Kakashi said.

"I need nothing."

"Jiraiya warned me that you were awfully uncooperative."

Itachi didn't answer. He averted his eyes back to the sky and removed himself from the situation. His body stayed, but his mind travelled miles away.

* * *

At some point during the night, Ino had returned home and left again. Sakura knew this because she woke up and found a carton of milk standing abandoned by the kitchen sink, but no Ino anywhere within the apartment. Ino's neat freak tendencies didn't embrace expiration dates and food care. Sakura emptied the carton and tossed it into the trash bin. They didn't really have the money to waste food like that, but there was no reason to cry over spilt milk. Pun intended, Sakura thought with a small, private smile.

Normally, when Sakura was low on money, it was a blessing to be assigned a mission, but this time she felt conflicted. Perhaps it was the fact that she would be doing her first mission in years which didn't include Kakashi and Naruto. After the war, their team had gone on hiatus. Sakura now spent the majority of her time at the hospital, and Kakashi and Naruto mostly did solo missions. Or perhaps it was the fact that she would be going on a mission with Itachi, and she just knew that she would be held responsible if anything went awry. Tsunade had put her on babysitting duty, though she hadn't outright said so. Sakura understood the Hokage and the way that her mind worked. Sometimes, she wished she didn't. Itachi made her skin come alive and crawl off her bones. He instilled a mix of fear and fascination within her. Sakura knew from experience that this was a very bad mix; one that she was defenseless against. She was sure that Itachi was an eminent Captain, but she wasn't sure that the quality of her work would be satisfactory to him. Itachi was a perfectionist, and Sakura hadn't been much in the field since the incident with Ichiro.

Sakura left the kitchen and went into the bathroom. When her bare feet touched the cold tiles, she shuddered and caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. She paused and for a good long minute she studies herself in the mirror.

"If you're not dead by thirty," she said to her reflection. "You will kill yourself, Sakura. Preferably with a good, sharp knife."

Dismissing her reflection, she turned away from the mirror and turned on the shower. Fifteen minutes later, when the hot water had stopped feeling good and instead felt smothering, she turned off the shower and threw on the nearest bathrobe. It was the lilac one with lotus flowers woven into the silk. It was Ino's, but no part of Sakura felt guilty for using it. Not after the expired milk. She walked out of the bathroom whilst toweling her hair, but she stopped short when someone cleared their throat. She didn't jump, but she felt her heart surge up her throat.

"Itachi," she greeted the man standing by the closed front door. "You're inside my apartment. Why are you inside my apartment?"

"The door was open," he said.

"You mean it wasn't locked?" Sakura asked.

"No. It wasn't shut," he said. She didn't think he would outright lie to her, but she didn't trust him on his word either. She wouldn't take a shower without closing the front door first. She always closed the front door. Ino sometimes left it open when she had to run down to the grocery store or pick up the mail, but Sakura liked her privacy. Part of her was offended by Itachi's rudeness. You didn't enter somebody's apartment without a direct invitation. It was the short side of breaking and entering. Another part of her was, again, fascinated by the way his mind worked. Sakura waved Itachi further inside the room and tried not to feel naked in the silk robe. She would have liked her uniform right then.

"And you know where I live, how?" she asked.

"I am here to inform you about the mission," he said and walked into the room. He didn't sit down on the couch, but he stood behind it.

"And that's why you figured you would enter my apartment uninvited?" she asked.

"You were showering," he answered. "I saw no reason to wait outside the door."

Definitely fascinated, Sakura thought. She was angry. She was angry that she didn't feel angry towards Itachi. He sounded so cordial and logical in his speech that he made her see reason even in this situation.

"You can wait here by the couch. I need to change," she said. She was about to turn around and head for her bedroom, when she stopped. She didn't want to turn her back on Itachi, but it would look suspicious if she didn't. And she needed him to trust her. They were going on a mission together. That required an amount of professional and unconditional trust. Gritting her teeth, Sakura turned her back on him and resolutely walked towards her bedroom. It was around the same time that the front door opened and Ino's voice rang out across the room.

"Sakura, I'm home! Bought stuff for the fridge," the blonde's voice could be heard.

Sakura's mind blanked out like it did during battle. She abandoned her initial plan to enter her bedroom and pushed Itachi backwards the few steps that it took for them to enter the bathroom. Once inside, she shut the door and turned the lock.

"I don't see why this is necessary," Itachi said from where he stood beside the sink and watched her. They could hear Ino wander about in the apartment in search for her friend. Sakura was just happy that Itachi had let her manhandle him into the bathroom. She had regretted pushing the man seconds before she had done it, but somehow she had just gone through with it anyway. It had been a knee-jerk reaction, and her mind hadn't thought of him as a threat. She had reacted as though he had been a secret, and technically he was. Ino didn't know about the mission and she didn't know about the treatments. Sakura intended to keep it that way. At least until she had to leave for the mission. Procrastinate, stall, prolong. That was the key to surviving living in the same space as Ino. If not, you would be pestered with questions twenty four seven.

"Just inform me about the mission," she told Itachi. "And do it quietly."

Something changed on Itachi's face. It was the lines around his eyes and mouth that told Sakura she had done something wrong.

"For future reference, Haruno," he said, "I do not want this sort of attitude aimed at me."

"Understood," Sakura said. She had been out of line. He was here on official business. A series of knocks on the bathroom door just about gave Sakura a heart attack.

"Sakura?" Ino said through the wood. "You in there?"

"Yeah," she answered. "Be out in a minute."

Her words were spoken to Ino, but her eyes were locked onto Itachi. He raised a slow brow. He was going to speak up just to spite her. Or maybe she was confusing him with Sasuke.

"Then get your ass moving," Ino said. "I need to-"

"Wait your turn, Ino," Sakura said and she sounded too irritated than what was natural for the conversation. Dammit. It would tip Ino off. Itachi's second eyebrow went up to join the first and Sakura wondered when Itachi had become so frustratingly expressive.

"Down, tiger," Ino said and whistled low. "Don't get aggressive or whatever."

Sakura waited until she could no longer hear the retreating footsteps of Ino. Then she turned to Itachi.

"We meet outside the gates five o'clock tomorrow morning," he said. "Pack for two weeks. Temperature and climate same as here. Furtherer instructions will be given tomorrow. Any questions?"

Sakura opened her mouth to say no, but there was a wispy poof and she was alone in the bathroom. Guess he hadn't wanted to give her the chance to say yes. Did she strike him as high-maintenance? And did she care what he thought of her?


	6. Chapter Five

**A/N: **Edited November 17, 2013

_If you are interested in my original novels and works, check out this site on facebook: /arfrederiksen_

* * *

**Narcissus  
**By Frozzy

* * *

**Chapter Five **

The target's name was Hayashi Aoki, retired drug lord extraordinaire and contemporary owner of the most prosperous brothel along the western border of Fire Country. As with all S-ranked missions, this one was a classified mission of the highest order. Sakura had gone through enough paperwork in her time as Tsunade's apprentice to know that this folder had been stored away for the ideal team to eventually come and pick it up. Hayashi's business wasn't likely to disappear on its own, but he also hadn't been dangerous enough for immediate extermination. So, yes, this case had been stored away and saved for the ideal team to pick it up. Ideal team meant that the Hokage needed the right abilities patched together in order for the mission to have an acceptable percentage of success. The mission wasn't important enough to have a success rate below 90 percent; Konoha didn't want to lose men because of it. If a mission was important, you dispatched the best of the best and half of them would die. It was ironic. Sakura had always thought so. She also had no doubt that the abilities of her temporary team were a compatible match for the level and type of objective in question. But, regrettably, it was the persons and not the abilities that had to interact together on a daily basis.

"If we're gonna keep up the pretense of being civilians and walk to our destination," she began and paused to sidestep a log on the road, "then I don't see why we couldn't have said yes to the farmer's offer six hours ago and ride with him in his wagon. If anything, it would reinforce our cover as civilians."

She thought she heard Shikamaru grunt in agreement, but it might have been wishful thinking.

"We don't make it a habit to catch rides from strangers," Itachi said from up. "Self-preservation, and we have no immediate deadline."

If there had been a bug on the ground, Sakura would have stepped on it. She wanted to step on something, and she couldn't step on Itachi's face.

"An update said that Hayashi's position is currently unknown," Neji said. "It would be counterproductive to hurry towards a destination where the target might not be and miss clues to his actual whereabouts in the process."

"Why was I not informed about that?" Sakura asked. Itachi's decision made sense now.

"Captain briefed us separately before we took off," Shikamaru said. Itachi certainly hadn't briefed Sakura about that. Maybe he had been in a hurry to take off and get the mission started, but she had been there on time. Five minutes before time, to be exact. It wasn't her fault that the other men had nothing to do but work. Sakura also had laundry, a bitchy roommate, and Naruto. Naruto had fussed especially much about this mission, and Sakura had spent most of the morning on assuring him that she could take care of herself. In the end, she had knocked him out to prove her survival skills. Itachi wouldn't forget to inform the entirety of his team properly. It was more likely that he held a grudge about the bathroom incident and this was his retaliation. Still, he was more of a professional than that. Or had she thought wrongly of him? If she had, she should have reconsidered joining this mission.

"Mutilation isn't the way to go," Shikamaru said to her left.

"And what would you know about that?" she asked.

"Not much," he said, "but he would kick your ass in less than a minute."

"Can't argue against that," she said and threw Itachi's back an ugly look.

"Besides, what's up with all this feigned bad blood?"

Sakura's face twisted up like a lemon. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're bickering with him like he's Naruto," Shikamaru said with a lazy shrug. He was completely unconcerned with her death glare, and Itachi's timing was very immaculate when he addressed the three team members trailing behind him. Well, she thought, of course it was immaculate when there was a ninety-nine percent chance that he had listened in on the conversation from the start.

"Ten minutes break," he said and came to a halt. "Haruno, get up here."

Sakura left behind the safe company of Neji and Shikamaru and headed for Itachi. He didn't acknowledge her arrival when she reached him, but he kept his eyes fixed on the sloping stripe of road that was ahead of them.

"Yes, Captain?" she said and Itachi's head inched in her direction, but he kept his eyes fixed on the road.

"Under what circumstances may I activate my eyes?" he asked. The nature of the question was enough to throw Sakura off track. She hadn't bothered bringing up the topic herself, because she hadn't thought he would have listened to her. That was wrong. He was the patient. He was her patient. She couldn't suppose things; she had to inform the patient fully and properly. Itachi was a special case, but not special enough to break protocol for.

"Are you asking for my authorization?" she asked and forced aside the thought that perhaps Shikamaru had been right. Perhaps Kakashi had been right. Perhaps Itachi reminded her too much of Sasuke and she was projecting her knowledge of Sasuke onto Itachi. But they didn't necessarily work the same. And, in all fairness, Sakura's understanding of Sasuke was poor and consisted mostly of childhood memories. Itachi took his eyes off the road and looked Sakura in the face. She could feel her shoulders straighten up almost per instinct. She stood at command.

"You are my doctor, are you not?" Itachi asked. "Yes. I am asking for your authorization."

"Keep it off unless we engage in direct battle and it's the only thing that will secure a successful outcome. As long as we're in the process of tracking down the target and nothing more, Neji can do the scouting well enough. Otherwise there's no need for you to keep your Sharingan activated. Also, I've decided to do one session a day from now on, so it won't affect my performance as the team physician."

"Agreed," Itachi said. "We will find a village to stay in overnight for you to perform your procedure."

"The Hokage has ordered you to adjust your plans for the mission to the schedule I'm setting for you, has she not?" Sakura asked and studied Itachi's face for any upcoming reaction. There was none. Instead, Itachi ignored her and called back over his shoulder that the ten minute break was up. If Sakura hadn't so obviously hit the nail on the head with her last comment, his behavior would have pissed her off. Itachi had become much more predictable than what Sakura was used to. If Shikamaru's insinuations held the slightest bit of truth to them, there was a reason for that, and that reason had nothing to do with her disliking the Uchiha, but everything to do with her befriending him.

"Got you thinking, didn't I?" Shikamaru asked her, as the group resumed their travel and he walked up next to her. Itachi stayed in the front and Neji stayed in the back. That left her with Shikamaru, who for some reason was intent on not letting go of this topic.

"You need to stop talking before I do something impulsive," she told him.

"And you need to get our own apartment," he said. "Ino is rubbing off on you."

"No, that's just the general attitude your presence inflicts upon people."

He gave no reply. It was almost regrettable. His silence gave her more room to think in.

* * *

It was routine by now. He settled down on the bed and she settled down on a chair next to him. The only difference was the surroundings. The inn they had stopped at wasn't anything over the top. They had picked it because it was the only place that wasn't too expensive for their budget, and it had offered them two singles and a double. Itachi and Sakura had gotten the two singles, and Shikamaru and Neji shared the double. The formality with which the sleeping arrangements had been conducted had been strange. Perhaps because it had been very formal. Nobody had put up a fuss. They had agreed without any discussion. The team dynamic that Sakura shared with Naruto, Kakashi and Sai was twisted when it came to formalities and protocol. Sakura liked the easy camaraderie that came with years of friendship, but she could also appreciate the straight forward attitude that came in groups like these; groups that had been formed outside of the norm. It was past midnight, but Sakura had insisted upon following the schedule that she had set for Itachi's sessions. Frequency and regularity were the best tools for any treatment.

"Does this hurt?"

"No."

"This?"

"No."

The elephant in the room was huge. It was interfering with Sakura's work process and when something interfered with her work process, Sakura didn't play ignorant. Itachi owed her some explanations. She had let him walk astray for some time now, but she wanted answers. She needed them if she was going to continue the treatment.

"Are we going to keep pretending that I don't know you're on illegal medication?" she asked.

"Yes."

She tried to work out Itachi's reasoning, but she failed horribly. Letting it go for now, she put her hands back into position and resumed her work on his eyes. Over the last few weeks she had worked past the more severe damage as best as she could, because Itachi's vision was in a much worse condition than Kakashi's had ever been. She wasn't sure if she could restore it to its full capacity. Although, she doubted that Itachi would ever figure that out unless she told him. If your vision was on twenty percent, you weren't likely to notice whether it was raised to eighty or to a hundred. The difference would be so vast that you would simply assume it was a hundred percent.

"I'm going against every rule by keeping my mouth shut about this," she said. "It's a funny thought. That the invincible Uchiha Itachi isn't invincible."

When she was grabbed around the elbow and blunt nails dug into her flesh, her concentration slipped and she almost snapped a cluster of rod cells.

"Don't startle me when I'm working," she said and felt a bead of sweat run down her brow. Itachi waited for her to regain control of her flailing chakra, but he didn't let go of her elbow. Maybe he was afraid that it would disturb her control even more. It probably would. It took her a couple of minutes, but eventually she drew back from the man on the bed with a small sigh of exhaustion. That hadn't been a nice experience.

"Did you mock me?" Itachi asked her. He had pulled himself up onto one arm so he could look her in the face. His other hand wasn't letting go of her elbow. Sakura's stomach rolled in on itself in a mix of nausea and worry. She smacked her lips a couple of times before she answered.

"No," she answered and reverted to old habits when she fixed her eyes on a point near his shoulder. There was a pause in which Sakura expected Itachi to either accept or reject her answer. He did neither. He didn't answer at all, but he kept gripping her elbow with one hand.

"Does it have anything to do with Sasuke? The illegal medication? The drugs?" she asked. It was a stupid subject to bring up, but her mind had blanked out. Sasuke was the one topic that even her blanked mind couldn't erase. Her long lost teammate was ingrained too deeply in her subconscious, taking up the space next to Naruto, Kakashi, Ino, her parents and Sai.

"No."

There was another pause where Sakura was too aware of Itachi's slow, steady breathing in the deathly quiet room. Shikamaru's words echoed in her head, taunting her and she could feel the panic hovering inches away from her reach, sampling her. But she wouldn't give in. Itachi hadn't done anything more except grab her elbow. He wasn't being hostile. Mostly, he appeared as though he wanted to understand why she had tried to provoke him.

"Will you let go of my arm?" she asked and opted for politeness. She honestly wasn't sure that violence was an option. She doubted she could force Itachi to do anything.

"I believe we have had this discussion before," Itachi said. So far, Sakura had fixed her eyes on his shoulder. Old habit. Now, his voice made her look up, and her nose grazed his chin before she got the chance to estimate the distance between them. The scent of pine and rain wafted up her nose. She could imagine the swaying tree tops and the steady pounding of rain against the ground.

"What?" she asked. "What discussion?"

"Do not mistake me for my brother," Itachi said. His voice was soft in a way she hadn't heard before. The hand which had grabbed her elbow was now down by her forearm. Sakura's heart was up her throat so far that she could taste the rush of blood. Itachi was close enough for her to admire the soft, delicate slope of his nose. Thrilled voices in her head told her to bury her nose and mouth in the smooth curve of Itachi's neck. A more logical voice told her that Itachi could snap her neck within the second if he so wished. A third voice, one that sounded suspiciously like Kakashi, waved a red flag at her saying I told you so in bold black letters.

"I am not my brother, Sakura," Itachi said again. Why was everybody so concerned with this?

"I know," she said. "And my name is for my friends to use."

"I don't intend to be your friend."

"What is this about?" she asked.

Itachi's face blanked out. He was done sharing. He released her arm and lay down on the bed.

"I apologize. I egged you on purposely. Your attraction to me is very unconventional," he said. "I find interesting."

"I get that, yes," she said and surprising herself.

"You don't deny it," Itachi said. It was like when you cut your fingertip and blood bubbled up like a tiny scarlet pearl. The blood would keep seeping up into that bubble, making it wobble until it would eventually burst. It always hurt more when you saw the blood.

"Because it would be pointless," she said. "I faultily loved Sasuke for nearly a decade and he's the spitting image of his brother. The one I'm looking at right now. How can I not find you attractive, when I pined over your neurotic little brother through my entire adolescence? It's a dead giveaway. Everybody knows it. People expect me to transfer those old feelings over onto you. People expect me to like you. To somehow convert you into being a better man or something. It's stupid. I don't listen to those rumors, but I still hear them, and I can't say that they're completely unfounded, because the Uchiha genes are by default impeccable. Brains, looks, everything. How can you possibly not be attracted to that, bad blood or no bad blood?"

Her tirade was met with silence, and Sakura immediately went for damage control.

"Sorry," she apologized and regained some of her professionalism. "That was uncalled for. We're nearly done for today, let me just check-"

"I do not know where my brother is," Itachi said. He wasn't looking at her anymore. He was staring at the ceiling and Sakura was grateful.

"I suppose that's better than you knowing it," she said.

"You are relieved."

"With the hissy fit I just threw at you, I thought that much would be obvious," she said. "Sasuke doesn't care about me, but he is still my friend. I don't want him dead. I don't want anybody dead. And don't worry. I can find a man attractive and not act upon that attraction. Been there, done that. Now, I'm gonna do a few checkups and we'll be done. It shouldn't take long."

There was a short break in the conversation.

"I find this very amusing," Itachi said. Sakura almost made the mistake of smiling. She was pretty sure that had been Itachi's version of a joke. Or a tension breaker.

"It's not a love declaration, so don't find it too pathetic," she said while she routinely went through the last couple of checkups before they could call it a night.

"That part goes to my brother, I presume."

"Not in the way everybody thinks," she said, answering on autopilot. "All right, I think we're done for today. As usual, don't fret if you start feeling dizzy throughout the night or if the signs of a headache start to show."

Ten minutes later she was back in her own room. Somewhere back in Konoha, she bet that Kakashi was laughing his ass off. He had seen this coming, and in all honesty she had recognized the signs herself. Bad blood was overrated. Maybe bad blood was even bad for the wrong reasons. Hadn't that been what Kakashi had implied that day in his kitchen?

* * *

Ino was worried for her friend. It might not appear that way with her loudmouth personality, but she was. And now Sakura was off to somewhere unknown, paired up with the elder Uchiha for a mission that would last for weeks. Ino trusted Shikamaru to keep Sakura out of any Uchiha-related trouble, but she didn't trust Shikamaru to keep his mouth shut and not antagonize Sakura into doing something stupid like hitting the Uchiha in the face. That was what worried her.

"What about Daiki?" Tenten said and slurped down the last of the fried fish on her plate.

"Too old," Ino said and took a sip of her water.

"Old?" Tenten repeated. "When did that become a deal breaker for you?"

"I want them old enough to know what they're doing," Ino said. "Not so old that they last for half a round."

Tenten shrugged. "I still think Daiki is an option."

"That's because you're no good at rating people."

"Maybe," Tenten replied, "but you did agree with me on Uchiha."

"And Kakashi, Kiba, Katsuro, Iruka and Sho," Ino said. "Lots of people are hot. What's your point?"

"Do you think that Sakura-"

"No," Ino said.

"But maybe it wouldn't be that bad?" Tenten said. Ino was sure her face dropped to the ground. She could taste the dust.

"Not that bad?"

"Well, you know," Tenten said. "The Hokage wouldn't reinsert him and much less give him a rank as Captain unless she's sure where his loyalty lies. I don't agree with Uchiha's actions in the past. Who does, really? But it makes no sense that we trust Tsunade-sama's judgment with everything else, but not this. The two of them greet each other on the street, and Sakura looks comfortable around him. Maybe it wouldn't be that bad. I don't know."

"He's not Sasuke," Ino said. "Just because Sakura liked Sasuke, it doesn't mean that she has to like Itachi. Then the same would count for me, and I sure as fuck don't like the guy. God. We need new gossip around here."

"All right," Tenten gave in. "Why is Hinata so late? We've finished lunch without her."

"No idea," Ino said. "We're giving her twenty minutes and then we're off."

"You really think the Hokage's judgment is flawed?"

"I dunno," Ino said. "Perhaps misguided."

"That's a pretty serious accusation," Tenten said and her eyes flickered to the side as if she was expecting people to eavesdrop on them. Really. People had better things to do than eavesdrop on two women having lunch by a random food stand, but Ino didn't fault Tenten. Paranoia was a side-effect of their profession.

"It's not an accusation," Ino said. "It's more rumination."

Ino wasn't stupid enough to accuse the Hokage of being misguided. Not outright. Moreover, she wasn't stupid enough to accuse Tsunade of being misguided. She was more afraid of Tsunade than the Hokage. They were the same person, yes, but so very different at the same time.

"As long as Sakura comes back in one piece, I'll put my trust in the Hokage's judgment," Tenten said. "I mean, who else should we be able to trust unconditionally if not our village leader?"

"Indeed," Ino agreed without really agreeing. "So, how's it going with you and Jurou?"

"Nothing new. He took me out dining yesterday. That's it, I think," Tenten said. It was around that same time that Hinata made an appearance. She slipped into the chair next to Tenten as though she had been sitting there the whole time. It was done with the grace and subtlety of a Hyuuga and it couldn't have been any different. To be honest, Ino supposed that she probably ought to trust the Hokage's judgment, but something held her back from doing so. Sakura's judgment, she would trust. To a certain extent, because when it came to men Sakura was as dumb as a goose. When it came to a threat, however, Sakura was smarter than most. Unfortunately, Itachi seemed to have slipped from threat zone into man zone, while Ino hadn't been looking. Uchiha Itachi's return had messed up both the village and Sakura, and Ino honestly had no idea if that had been the Hokage's original plan from the beginning. Disturbing thought, that was.

"Ino?"

"Ah-huh?"

"You're spacing out."

"Sorry," she said. "Hey, are you guys going to that banquet tomorrow night? The one Shizune-san is hosting on behalf of the hospital?"

Hinata nodded and Tenten wrinkled her nose. "It's obligatory for all jonin, is it not?"

"Right," Ino remembered, "slipped my mind."

"You know, Ino, since you don't want Daiki to take you in the sweaty, slippery sense, you could always have him take you to the banquet instead," Tenten pointed out.

"Funny," Ino said and rolled her eyes to emphasize just how amused she was by her friend's comment.

"Daiki?" Hinata questioned and looked back and forth between Ino and Tenten. Tenten was the quicker of the two.

"The clerk from the shop where Ino buys her-"

"Can we shut up about Daiki, already?" Ino asked. "Really."

It was amazing that she hadn't done the guy already just to make Tenten shut up. Ino spaced off again, and vaguely listened to the faraway chattering of Tenten and Hinata. She occasionally joined in with a 'mhm' and 'oh, yeah'. The days went on as usual in Konoha, and Ino wondered if Sakura had ever considered it an option to decline the mission. Knowing her work ethic, Sakura probably hadn't. And that detail was certainly something that the Hokage would have been aware of, and something that she would take advantage of. Why did situations always suck when you started to probe at them?


	7. Chapter Six

**A/N: **Edited November 22, 2013

_If you are interested in my original novels and works, check out this site on facebook: com/arfrederiksen_

* * *

**Narcissus  
**By Frozzy

* * *

**Chapter Six**

It was sweltering hot as they travelled along the roadside. For an hour straight they had encountered only a farmer, his horse and his cart of goods. The stench from the cart had given away the poor condition of the harvested crops. The imbedded wheel tracks in the road spoke of a trade route with heavy regular traffic, and even though it was late midday, the small group of four had seen no traffic besides that of the lone farmer. Something was wrong. The road was supposed to swarm with people. If not merchants, then simple farmers or civilians.

"Are we all thinking it?" Sakura asked and swept the back of her hand across her sweaty brow.

"It could be failure of crops," Shikamaru said.

"That doesn't explain the trade of other crafts and why they would stagnate, too," Neji said with a calculative look on his face that would have fit Shikamaru better.

"Hyuuga, move ahead and scout the area," Itachi's said. Neji's reaction was by far the quickest reaction Sakura had seen so far on this mission. Itachi's order was brisk, and Neji disappeared too quickly for the eye to follow. Not that Sakura was outright looking. Still, she felt the gust of wind from the other ninja's departure, and for a moment she genuinely envied the Hyuuga's ability to unconditionally obey orders from a Captain that was Uchiha Itachi. Sakura was adapting to his presence. She wanted to understand him and why he had returned. That was true. But she also had more baggage to overcome than any other person in the village when it came to the Uchiha family. As did Naruto and Kakashi, though Kakashi had a lot of other baggage that went further back than his adult life and his position as Sasuke's mentor. Sakura and Naruto had pulled the short straws.

"How far are we from our location?" Sakura asked Itachi.

Itachi needed minimal time to do the math. "A day and a half."

The three of them walked in silence for a good ten minutes. Itachi was in the front of the group and Shikamaru was in the rear. Sakura was in the middle and sometimes she fell back to Shikamaru or he walked up next to her. Ahead of them, Itachi's strides were steady and purposeful. They belied the fact that he had just sent Neji off to scout the area for threats. His leadership wasn't strict or rigid, Sakura thought. It was so highly rationalized, bound up around calculations and strategies, that it just appeared so. Itachi had the work ethic of many other ANBU captains and agents. In the crowd of sociopathic assassins, tactic and strategy were modus operandi. From that point of view, ANBU teams were predictable. You would never see a considerate or forgiving ANBU member. They simply didn't work like that. Their impeccable logic and sharp minds made up for that one flaw, but the predictability was still a flaw. The flaw just happened to also give them the highest success rate in their missions. It was a paradox. Very few would ever fit into that world. Itachi would fit in. He had been one, as far as the rumors went. An ANBU captain at the spry age of thirteen. He deserved credit for that, and Sakura would work harder on giving it to him. She would get her answers at some point. She would understand why he had been allowed to return. She only needed to get past years of fear and trepidation first.

"It's clear," Neji said with a cloud of dust whirling up around his feet where he dropped down next to Itachi.

"The disturbance is most likely closer to the source and not here," Itachi said. "Nothing we need to investigate unless it interferes directly with our objective."

"People in favor of locating the source, raise your hand," Shikamaru said to Sakura's left.

"Drop the sarcasm," Itachi said, but without any real heat to it. Sakura wondered when she had begun to differentiate between Itachi's moods; when she had begun to recognize them from one another. But no, that was something she could think about later. She was on duty, and she prioritized better than that.

"Not my style, Cap," Shikamaru said. He raised his arms and clasped his hands together behind his head in a way that reminded Sakura of Naruto. She was missing the idiot already.

"We should investigate the next village we come across," Neji said.

"We will stay overnight," the Uchiha agreed with the other man. Sakura quirked a brow. That was a nice way of giving her time to work on his eyes without outright saying so. That wouldn't do.

"Gives us time to work on your eyes," she said and earned herself the full attention of the Uchiha. Again, out of habit, she lowered her eyes to a point near his neck. His eyes were black. Like licorice. Not deep red. But it was habit, a safety mechanism, and Sakura fell back on it very often.

"Yes," he replied. "We will scout the taverns and inns in the village and find the place most suitable for us."

"How far away is the nearest village?" Sakura asked. There was a pause, and it was long enough for Sakura to wonder if her question somehow had been out of line.

"About two hours," Neji answered for Itachi.

"Should get going then," Shikamaru said and looked skywards. "Clouds are gathering."

"Allergic to water?" Sakura asked and studied the grey sky herself. "With this heat, I would love some rain."

"Severely disinclined, is more like it," Shikamaru said and did a very good nasal impression of Ino. It made Sakura laugh and scrunch up her nose like a rodent. She still hated Sai for that. She hadn't needed to know how she looked while she laughed, much less when it was something as distasteful as a rodent. Why couldn't he have said rabbit? That would have painted a nicer picture in her head and made her less self-conscious.

"Round up the chattering and match my speed," Itachi said. He gave no further warning before he pushed his body off the ground. Chakra assembled by his feet and dust rose from the ground after his takeoff. The other three jonin followed like a herd of lemmings.

* * *

It was luck or fortune which made the nearest civilization a village at the size of an overgrown pea. It had one grocery store, one public restroom, one inn and one pub. Smaller size meant fewer complications. If there were any juicy details to find in this place, it would be scattered over the space of five miles. With the lack of choices, the need for strategic moves fell into the background. No plan was easier than the one created out of necessity and lack of options. With one pub, there was only one place to search for clues about Hayashi and his whereabouts.

"We'll split up in pairs," Itachi said with his eyes fixed on the rundown pub and the obese man tumbling out of the door with what looked like a prostitute in tow. "See what information you can get on the target and the inactive trade routes. Let's see if we can rule out a connection, or if we have to look further into it. Stay incognito. Don't alert any civilians of your presence unless absolutely called for. We reassemble back here in two hours. Understood?"

"Yes, Captain," they all said in unison.

Civilians wouldn't automatically notice shinobi upon their arrival. With professionals, however, it didn't matter whether or not you lay low. If there were any professional assassins within that pub, they would have sensed the four jonin already. Trying to lay low would be an insult to them, which would most likely end in bloodshed. Even if Itachi had made the decision to have them mask their chakra as a precaution, it would have made little difference. An assassin recognized a fellow killer by sight. At most, chakra signatures were a helpful side dish used to decide your course of action; kill or not kill the potentially dangerous stranger. Inside, the pub lived up to its expectations: dim, seedy and foggy. Wearing their jonin gear, minus the recognizable vest and hitai-ate, they entered two by two with a thirty minute interval. Sakura was with Shikamaru in the second group. By the time that they entered, chances were that Itachi and Neji had already solved the case. On some level, Sakura almost hoped for that.

"D'you see them anywhere?" Shikamaru asked and cocked his head in Sakura's direction when he spoke. He had his hands nestled deep within his pockets and his head was worn low. He scouted the area for their teammates. The admirable part was how he managed to look disinterested in his surroundings while he did the survey. Sakura smiled to herself. People saw what they wanted to see.

"If they're not around, they've gotten a lead. Let's roam the area once and settle down where the potential lies," Sakura said with a false smile on her face. She moved forward and took the lead without waiting for Shikamaru's reply. She doubted he would have any objections. It was information gathering on its most basic level: eavesdropping.

"What happened to always keep an eye on your team?" Shikamaru asked from behind Sakura.

"Got replaced by grow a backbone and do the shit on your own," Sakura answered and weaved her way through a particular thick crowd of underage girls and bald men with sweaty foreheads and bushy grey brows.

"Touché," Shikamaru smirked and sidestepped one of those bald men. He purposefully lost his balance to play the part of a drunkard. They were in a pub. They had to fake it. The move made him bump into Sakura's back rather roughly, and she let out a grunt at the impact.

"Sorry," he said into her ear. She nodded and patted his arm to keep him close. Fake it.

"Picked up on anything yet?" she asked.

"Nothing so far," he answered and stayed close to her back. They made their way towards a corner of the pub. Often you found the good stuff in the shadows. The shadows were where the bad guys gathered. They walked a few more steps at a leisure pace, passing a couple of empty tables in the process, when Sakura felt Shikamaru tighten his grip on her arm. She turned her head to look at him. His attention wasn't fixed on her. It was fixed on a spot ahead of them. She followed his line of sight. Two men were gathered in the shadows of one table, their attention locked on Sakura and Shikamaru. Right. They were busted. They could either accept the fact or ignore it. Sakura was never one for ignoring stuff.

"Best go over there," she said and angled her steps towards the two men and the table.

"And negotiate," Shikamaru said and followed the route she had set.

The men's hunched backs and ability to blend in with the upholstery of the chairs screamed secrecy, and Sakura knew that neither she nor Shikamaru would have noticed the two men if they hadn't been trained in observation. As the two Konoha citizens advanced on the table, both parties sized the other one up. Memorizing the two men's faces, Sakura's mind automatically christened them Beard and Grease. It was for future reference. It was also a safe precaution. If your enemy was nameless, you named them after their features. In that way, you'd always have one facial trait to track them down with if they escaped.

"Your other half left ten minutes ago," Beard said to them.

"You gave them something good to go off with?" Sakura smiled.

"A warning," Grease said, his eyes trailing down her nose and to her lips. She ignored the gesture. "Do your business elsewhere."

"We're passing through. Leaving come morning," Shikamaru said. It wasn't a complete lie.

"We'll be checking up on that."

"You should check up on your finances instead. The drop in trade is painfully noticeable," Sakura said and dropped her play at politeness. She was provoked by how Grease was studying her collarbone like it was the tastiest treat within miles. To be fair, it probably was. This village was a dump and most of the women looked like men. Sakura didn't care much for her looks, but she cared more than most of the women inside this particular pub. Even the younger girls looked like the cat had dragged them home. Later, if Shikamaru should think of chiding Sakura for her straightforward approach, she knew that this argument would make him shut his hole. Objectification was a kunoichi's best defense, and Sakura wasn't above misusing it.

"Feel free to look into that afteryou leave town," Beard said and his voice tight with something that Sakura immediately recognized as fear. "We don't need you here."

"My guess is stolen goods," Sakura said. "There is no trade if there is nothing to trade with. You must have had your merchandise stolen, stopping all forms of trade. And in large quantities, too."

"Look, you little shit," Grease said and spat the words at her. "Raids are not uncommon out here. Whatever business you have, don't fool yourself into thinking it's of any consequence to our village. We don't want to get mixed up in anything, because you decided to single us out!"

It was clear that Itachi and Neji already had questioned the men. Nobody lost their calm as quickly as that. Not even the dumb ones.

"I've already said we're only passing through," Shikamaru said.

"We'll see to it that you do," Beard repeated.

"You do that," Sakura said and finally received a warning look from Shikamaru. It was about time. She needed someone with a grander diplomatic sense to balance out her bluntness. Shikamaru had to step up his game to do that. She would have worked better with Neji, she thought. Provided that he had the tolerance to play the diplomat in the face of her trademark impatience. She preferred results; not talk and subtle mind games.

"And you might wanna lock your door tonight, missy, or you might have a visitor," Grease said and eyed Sakura up. There was nothing to say to that. Not unless Sakura was allowed to bash the man's face in, and she knew that she wasn't. Sakura and Shikamaru left with two pairs of beady eyes urging them on until they had closed the door behind their backs. Outside the pub, Sakura turned to Shikamaru.

"Think our target is expanding his business to something a bit more refined than just drugs?" she asked. "If he's raiding these trade routes regularly, it's new knowledge to us."

"We should go see what the others have got," Shikamaru said.

"Wouldn't surprise me if they have the actual records of the village's depleting stocks," Sakura answered and ran a hand across her face to shake off the leftovers from the encounter. Her skin was thrumming with energy, but not the good kind.

"Jealousy speaking?" Shikamaru asked.

She shook her head. "Fact. I'm too rusty for this. I haven't done S-class in years. I only came along because Itachi requested me and the Hokage doubted he would accept anyone else."

As she stood there with Shikamaru, outside in the quiet night air of a random village and with an intricate mission stretching out before her, she was reminded of why she had spent the last two years on making the hospital her home away from home. She had chosen the healer profession, because she was good at it, and she had chosen to work a steady job at the hospital, because it was less stressful than working in the field. Healing inside the walls of an institution meant that she didn't have to prove herself on multiple levels. She didn't need to be both brains and brawn. She didn't need to be strategic and physically superior to her enemy on the battle field, while she also had to heal her teammates and herself. Her problem was quite simple, actually. She was a fighter and a healer put into one person, and yet she couldn't be both on the battlefield. This was why she had pursued a carrier within the hospital. This was why she had made her decision to leave the field and offer her spot to those more qualified. This was why she had taken up the project of healing Kakashi's eye in the first place. She had focused on the healer inside of her. Not the fighter.

So why, _why,_ was she standing here again, struggling with those two sides of herself?

* * *

An hour later, the group of four had relocated to the inn where they would spend the night. It turned out that Neji and Itachi had gotten more than just chatter from Beard and Grease; they had gotten the actual dates of the raids and had made a neatly structured schedule in the time that Sakura and Shikamaru had been having their own round with the two men. At the moment, however, Sakura was preoccupied with the fact that only one room had been vacant for the night, meaning that she was sharing the bathroom with three other men. It wasn't that they were of the opposite sex, and it wasn't that she spent hours on her showers. It was the fact that there was only hot water for fifteen minutes at most. Itachi had the privilege of the first shower, and the longer that she could hear the water running inside that damned room, the more irritated she got.

"You have a sunburn."

Sakura looked up from her backpack and across the room where Neji sat cross-legged on his bed. Her eyes were drawn to the waterfall of his hair that fell down heavily from his left shoulder. The previous year, Ino had teased her for months on end after Sakura had admitted that she had a thing for long hair. Long and well-kept. The mess of Kakashi's hair did nothing for her. Shikamaru's likewise. That realization was roughly after her breakup with Kiba, and somehow she thought of those two issues as related.

"Noticed that earlier, too," Shikamaru said from where he lay spread-eagled on top of his own bed. His eyes were closed in a light slumber.

"First mission in a long while," Sakura said and realized then that the tightness of her neck and shoulders was the work of the sun and not muscle strain as she had initially thought. Wandering the hallways of a hospital didn't give you much of an outdoors life. Guess the fight for hot water didn't matter much. She would be taking a cold shower.

"You could heal it," Neji said.

"That's a waste of resources," she said with a small smile that he cared. "'Sides, it's good to know that you can hurt once in a while."

Tsunade had always advised her not to heal minor injuries like light cuts and burns on herself. It was the fatal route that many renowned healers had taken. Their superior skills had led them to believe that they had been invincible. Then that one wound came along, the one which was a little too big and a little too deep, and which killed them. It was good to know that your skin could burn and bleed. It gave you a sense of survival. Or mortality.

The door to the bathroom opened and Itachi strolled out. Sakura kept her eyes on her hands where they roamed through her packed clothes, looking for something she could sleep in.

"Shower is free," Itachi said. Sakura could hear his bed creak behind her when he sat down.

"You guys go first," Shikamaru said. He sounded halfway asleep already.

"With this sunburn, I'm having a cold shower," Sakura said with a look towards Neji. The shower was all his. He gave a curt nod and got up. With the click of the lock, the atmosphere in the room changed. Sakura continued to roam though her clothes. Shikamaru was starting to emanate light snores and there was absolutely no sound or movement coming from Itachi on the bed behind her. Itachi was only noiseless when he didn't want to be heard. That didn't bode well. Sakura's nerves broke, and she gave up pretending to find clothes to sleep in.

"We should work on your eyes," she said. She started to turn around, but a hand clamped down on her shoulder. Her burnt skin protested wildly, and the same did her reflexes. Her hand shot up to take hold of the assailant's wrist, preparing to twist it and break the bone. Itachi anticipated the move, and seized her hand with his other free one. They were at an impasse. Sakura's spine was curled like a pretzel, and Itachi faced her twisting body with one hand around her wrist and the other on her burnt shoulder.

"Stand still," Itachi said. That was when Sakura felt the eerie sensation of his chakra flooding down her shoulders and neck.

"Are you—are you healing me?" she asked and started to struggle against his grip now that she knew he wasn't truly interested in hurting her.

"I told you to stand still," the Uchiha repeated.

"I can do this myself," Sakura said but fell still when she realized he wasn't going to let her go.

"I realize that."

Since the age of sixteen, Sakura had done her own healing. It hadn't been pride. It had been skill. Whenever she had had anybody else heal her, it had always been because she had been too beaten up or unconscious to do it herself. As such, she had only rarely experienced the process done to her by someone else. The ghostly sensation of Itachi's chakra healing her was both comfortable and uncomfortable. How many medical techniques did Itachi know? He had reentered Konoha with no team at his back. No Kisame either. If there had been a team, had they even had a medic? And more importantly, when had Sakura begun calling Itachi by his first name in her mind? There. She did it again.

"I know enough to ensure my survival," Itachi answered Sakura's unasked question.

"I didn't say anything," she said.

"Not out loud."

Sakura's burnt skin slowly loosened up, and Itachi's chakra receded to his own body like water trickling down a hill. The shower was still running inside the bathroom, telling Sakura that little time had passed. It felt longer. She didn't like that.

"I wouldn't have complained," she said and referred to the burn. "I can handle a sunburn."

"I know."

You couldn't argue with the man. It was infuriating.

"You're an ass," she said on a whim.

"I know."

This time, she thought she heard a smirk in his voice, even though his face was as apathetic as ever.

"I'm not asleep, you know," Shikamaru said drowsily. Right. After a few seconds of loaded silence, Sakura cleared her throat.

"Lie down and we'll look at your eyes," she said to Itachi. Without waiting for reply, she turned around to face her Captain. It put her face to face with the man for the first time since he had exited the bathroom, and she couldn't stop her eyes from drinking in the sight of him. He wore simple black slacks and a simple sleeveless shirt, and while she had just gotten accustomed to not seeing him in his customary Akatsuki robes, she wasn't ready for this. It was too human, she thought in a moment of clarity. That was the recurring problem with Uchiha Itachi. He reminded her that killers were humans. Aside from the casual slacks and shirt, Sakura was more interested in Itachi's hair.

"Your hair is loose," she said and made an aborted gesture with her hands to where his unbound hair fell free around his shoulders.

"Your observation skills are astounding."

"Hey, that's-"

"You wish to begin your session, I believe?" Itachi said and cut her off. She watched him for a little longer, trying to decipher his train of thoughts. She gave up before she had truly started.

"I need you to lie down, please," she said.

"Lie down for what exactly?" Shikamaru asked. Sakura flung a box of bandages at the strategist. She reveled in the thud and the angry curse that followed. Nobody said you had to be mature in the face of immaturity.

"Don't be a sore loser," she told him. "That's what you get for being a pervert."

"There's a rule against injuring teammates, you know," Shikamaru said and rubbed the side of his head where the box had hit. Ignoring that last part, Sakura turned to Itachi. She gestured for him to lie down on the bed, and he did so without complaint. After all, her attraction to the Uchiha was already well-established between the two of them, much to her chagrin. There was no need for Shikamaru to point it out, even in jest, and it appeared that she and Itachi both agreed on that matter.

"It should not be long," she said and readjusted herself so she had better access to his eyes. "Lie still, please."

As she delved into the mess that was Uchiha Itachi's eyes, she was once again bothered by the illegal medication she found circulating his bloodstream. Just why would Itachi need regular medication? Why would he need illegal drugs?

* * *

He couldn't sleep. That in itself was nothing new. What was new this time, however, were the thoughts that occupied his mind. Sasuke had always been there, and would continue to be there. Worries about his blindness were slowly fading away together with his blindness itself. Offspring and the continuation of the Uchiha bloodline were of no consequence yet. He would prove such to the Council and the Elders if they approached him with the matter directly, like Hatake had said that they would. He would not be dying in the near future, so there was no need to hurry on his bloodline. That, of course, led to the issue with the poison feasting away on his body. Now, that was counterworking his goal of staying alive.

He could hear Haruno wake up, could hear her sitting up with a start in her bed, no doubt caused by the humid air inside the room. He remained seated by the window, watching the night sky even as he heard the soft steps of her bare feet crossing the room.

"Your eyes are not hurting, are they?" she asked.

"No," he answered. Maybe if he didn't look at her, she would return to her bed and leave him be.

"Insomnia?" she asked. He granted that no answer. It was obvious, after all. She was searching for a conversation that he wasn't inclined to give.

"You should sleep," he said.

"Can't. It's too hot."

Part of him liked how the petite woman constantly shifted moods in his presence. There was never a dull moment when she was awake. She could both challenge him and fear him in one sentence. Another part of him detested her irregular and unpredictable behavior. Once in a while, he needed a dull moment to process the many details of his life. He had never led a simple life. There was a reason he didn't make friends. He had a reputation to uphold, thought it was out of necessity that he did it, and not out of want. The two were hard to split apart, and they were hard to forge together. Neessity and want; he had a complex relationship with both.

"You're not uncomfortable, too?" she asked.

"The weather is of no bother to me," he said and continued to look outside at the sky. He was still sure that if he kept his eyes averted, she would give up on the conversation sooner or later.

"It must be nice for you," she said. "To be able to see details like the stars again."

He almost pointed out that he was doing nothing as idyllic and picturesque as glancing at the stars, but then he decided to focus on something different.

"I appreciate your assistance in that matter," he said with a curt nod of acknowledgment. The Hokage had insisted that Haruno treated his eyes like she had treated Hatake's one eye. It had been her one condition for his reinstatement into the village. Probably out of guilt from the past. He hadn't asked for any treatment, but now he could appreciate it. He also knew that he wouldn't ever gain the full potential of his sight back, but he had expected never to get any of it back, so even the smallest change was significant.

"I wouldn't say anything to the Hokage," Haruno said after a short silence. "If you decided to tell me what you need those drugs for, I wouldn't pass the information on to the Hokage."

"Why? You wish to help me?" he asked with a slight drawl. "Before you begin a negotiation, you should perhaps consider the consequences of it first."

"I'm good at what I do," she said. "Whatever you're suffering from, I know for a fact that the drugs are the only thing keeping you alive. If you tell me what they are, we can find an alternative. A permanent and legal alternative. My resources are a lot better than those of whoever gave you those drugs to begin with. Have you considered that your body will become resistant to those drugs after too much regular use? As with every other antibody?"

He had considered that issue. Granted, he hadn't solved it yet, but that process was one of the longer ones and he had accepted that. He would solve it in time. Without help.

"From what I've gathered, it's your immune system that is taking the brunt of whatever's making you ill," she finished, taking a tone with him that he hadn't heard before. He had to give her that she was good; working on his eyes and somehow still examining the effects of the drugs that counterworked the non-catalogued poison flooding his body. She did indeed know what she was doing, although he hadn't doubted that at all. Though, to be fair, she hadn't yet differentiated the drugs from the poison. So far she knew only of the drugs and that they were keeping him alive from something else. She hadn't pinpointed that 'something else' was poison. He was about to ask how she knew about his immune system, but then he noticed Hyuuga's irregular heartbeats as the man's sleep was disrupted by their no longer subdued voices.

"I suggest you go back to bed," he said to Haruno. "This conversation is over."

She looked like she was about to fume some more at him, but then she simply shook her head and returned to her mattress and sheets. He watched her lie down, trying to decide whether the want to join her was based on an emotional or physical response. Then he averted his attention back onto the sky. Clouds were gathering, obscuring the stars and the moon, and Itachi admitted that he really had been doing something as idyllic and picturesque as admiring the many balls of plasma scattered across the celestial sphere. It was probably a physical response. He knew that she reacted to him on a physical level, and he reacted similarly to her as a consequence of that. He wasn't averse to it, he thought. He wasn't averse to it, but there were a lot of determinants to consider before he pursued anything.


	8. Chapter Seven

**A/N: **Edited November 23, 2013

_If you are interested in my original novels and works, check out this site on facebook: com/arfrederiksen_

* * *

**Narcissus  
**By Frozzy

* * *

**Chapter Seven**

They reached the outskirts of the target's village by the evening of the following day. By that time, Sakura's interest in Itachi's drugged bloodstream still haunted her thoughts. She couldn't shake it off. Much less now that Itachi had engaged in an actual conversation about it. Not now when he had truly acknowledged it. Last night had been some kind of breakthrough. She knew that. Sakura could clearly remember the day weeks ago, when he had threatened her life for bringing up the illegal drugs. This development was something to consider, and it was the perfect distraction to keep Sakura's mind occupied while her feet wandered along one road after another.

"We should make camp and talk strategy," Shikamaru said with a glance in Itachi's direction. Sakura had never been big on strategy. Naruto was a big influence there. They had always worked after their gut rather than their brains, and somehow it had always turned out well for them. Probably because Naruto's gut was as developed as Jiraiya's brain. Most of their battles as kids had been spontaneous and impulsive, and that tendency seemed to have followed them up through adulthood.

The target's – Hayashi's – village was relatively small. Just like the previous village that the group had spent the night in. It had no gates, no surrounding walls and no patrol towers. In short, the first impression was an average merchant village with a lack of militaristic protective measures. However, as the saying went, you should never judge a book by its cover. There had to be a reason that their target had picked this village for his business, however mediocre it looked.

"Wouldn't it be less suspicious to settle down within the village?" Sakura asked. "Given the lack of surveillance out here, it would attract attention if somebody camped out here as if they were afraid to enter the village without any apparent reason; without any extensive protective measures stopping them from entering the village."

"Staying within the village will likely rouse as much suspicion as camping outside of it," Neji said. "If we settle down within the village, word will spread sooner about our arrival and our target might pick up on our presence."

"Camp," Itachi said with no room for protest, and so half an hour later they found themselves settled within their newly established camp. The camp was them sitting in a circle on the ground with their backpacks thrown to the side haphazardly, and their hunched forms obscured by the canopying forest. They were masking their chakra by order of Itachi. Better safe than sorry, they had all agreed.

"First step will be locating the source of our target's business," Itachi said and threw the ball to Neji next.

"Second step is surveying and infiltrating the business," the Hyuuga continued. Shikamaru took up where he left off.

"Third step is killing the bastard," Shikamaru said much less diplomatically than the previous two.

"And final step is wrapping up any loose ends that might indicate our presence in town," Sakura said and wrapped up the plan quite nicely by placing herself somewhere in between excessive formality and excessive informality.

"At dawn we will put the first step into action," Itachi said and glanced at each team member to illustrate his authority.

"I'm taking first watch," he said. "You're free to decide amongst yourselves who wants to follow up."

"I'll do it," Sakura offered before anyone else could beat her to it.

"Guess that's settled then," Shikamaru said with a poorly stifled yawn. He completely missed the scrutinizing look that Itachi gave Sakura. Neji didn't. Just like that day back in the hospital on the staircase, Neji seemed to notice a whole lot of the interaction between Sakura and Itachi. Sakura noticed this with some melancholy. She didn't know why.

"I'll take the last one," Neji said and talked mostly to Shikamaru who made a vague hand gesture in agreement. His mind was already on his backpack and the offer of sleep that it provided. Sakura knew she would get no sleep that night. Not only did she generally have trouble sleeping outdoors, but the thoughts that circulated her mind would be sure to keep her up. It was an epiphany which had come to her after days and hours of inner discussion with herself. Her talk with Itachi last night had paid off. She had needed time to process, time to add and subtract, and now she had a good guess about what was compromising the Uchiha's health. And she was going to test it out tonight when the other two team members were asleep.

"What about the trade routes?" Sakura asked. "We've eliminated any connection between the raids and our target's narcotics business?"

"Our objective is to kill the target. The extermination of the target will eliminate all related issues," Itachi answered, and she supposed that made sense.

"Then what was the point with the hold up yesterday?" she asked. Why had they stopped to investigate the trade routes if it would never be of any importance?

"All information proves valuable to the Hokage," Itachi said. "If the target has been raiding trade routes aside from running his drug business, the Hokage will need to know. Nevertheless, killing the target still eliminates any other related issue. Such as the raids and the trade routes."

"Is that your polite way of saying it was waste of time?" Sakura asked.

"Maybe so," the Uchiha said with a warning edge to his voice. "However, that is my concern and not yours. Also, it coincided well with your daily treatment of my eyes."

It would be disrespectful to argue both of those points, so Sakura shut up and ignored the skeptically raised eyebrows of Shikamaru.

"Wonder why Cap is so lenient with you," he said quietly, when she walked past him on her way over to her backpack.

"When you have your answer, you can pass it on to me, because fuck if I know," she said with her attention focused solely on the spot where her backpack rested up against the hollow of a protruding root. Nara Shikamaru wasn't by far a dumb person. He was logical, tactical and horribly calculating to a point where it became more of a flaw than an asset. Who was she to contradict him in his observations?

* * *

Much like the previous night, her footsteps on the dry soil were what alerted him of her presence. If this was to become a frequent occurrence, he would have to set down some ground rules; first one being that this would not become a frequent occurrence.

"Our conversation was interrupted last night," Haruno said when she reached him. He shifted his body a fraction of an inch so the rock upon which he was sitting no longer dug into his tailbone. He always took the high ground when he was on watch. In every sense of the word.

"Is that so?"

"Yes," Haruno said, not backing down. Earlier, Itachi had debated whether or not it would be a good idea to allow her the second shift right after his own. Itachi generally didn't have regrets. It indicated that he invested himself emotionally, which he had made it a principle not to do. This time it was no different. He didn't regret allowing Haruno to have the shift after his, but he was allowed to mull it over.

"The offer still stands," she said. "I won't tell the Hokage. I don't kiss and tell."

He almost cracked a wry smile at that. "If you did, I would have to reconsider my silence on the matter."

She hesitated. He deduced it to her knowing what to do with such a comment from him. To be fair, he didn't fully know what to do with that comment either.

"I don't understand why you're so stupidly persistent in suffering needlessly like this," Haruno said. The fact that he remained impassive spoke volumes for his newly developed leniency towards the woman.

"Implying that I resemble my brother, I presume?" he asked, aiming lower than what was completely necessary. Why was that?

"No," Haruno said with her brows furrowed. "Implying that like every other shinobi, you're pointlessly irrational and deluded when it comes to your health, and I can't grasp the notion that everybody believes they can cheat death every single time it shows its face."

"I do not entertain the belief that I am invincible, Haruno. Only a fool would do so," the Uchiha said. He decided that the best course of action was to detach himself. He was accommodating to her, he realized. It seemed that he would have to seek out Hatake once they returned to Konoha. The man was to blame for this troublesome outcome.

"My guess is poison," Haruno said suddenly. "Those illegal drugs in your system are counterworking something more sinister; poison. Though that would not explain the lack of any symptoms. Unless the poison is of Category C and non-catalogued with no diagnostics and symptoms recorded or archived. That would mean no official antidote or any knowledge of symptoms, and it would explain why you're constantly doped on drugs. Then again, the lack of symptoms could be the result of those drugs, so there is no definite saying whether it is that category or not."

Itachi almost confirmed her guesswork out of sheer brilliant wit on her part. However, the consequences of doing so stood clear in his mind, and it blocked him from making such a foolish move. He couldn't confirm anything, and he didn't really want to. Instead, he stared straight ahead at the darkened forest. In the end, it didn't matter that Haruno knew of the poison within his body, he decided. What mattered was that she didn't how he had been poisoned from the very beginning. That would counterwork and jeopardize everything that he and the Hokage had based his reintegration into Konoha upon. They would uphold the illusion of his person; the illusion of Uchiha Itachi as a merciless slaughterer. With those lies summing up the general perception of him, it was too dangerous to grant Haruno access to the truth behind the drugs and the poison. That knowledge would lead to the truth about the Uchiha clan and the recent death of Madara. A death received by Itachi's hand, who was also the same person that Madara had poisoned right before Itachi had severed the man's head from his neck.

Itachi still hadn't figured out the workings of the poison. It had been a jutsu. Of that he was sure. The poison hadn't been physical at first, but had turned physical once it hit his body. It should be impossible to take something metaphysical and make it physical; make it manifest as a poisonous ulcer inside your opponent's body. The idea was intriguing, yet given the fact that he was currently victim to it, the feat seemed more appalling than admirable.

"I've cured Category C's before," Haruno said. "I didn't get my position as the Hokage's apprentice because she pitied me. Unlike what you may think of my capabilities."

There was some sort of underlying accusation hidden within her careful phrasing. He let it slide.

"The amount of interest you express in this matter is unwarranted," he said. "One would think that you worried for my well-being, Sakura."

"That's not-"

"I believe," Itachi said, taking the opportunity to drive the point home, "that this is a strong contrast to the time where you and your team consistently pursued me with the intention to take my life."

He didn't understand these conversations. He didn't understand why he indulged in them. Weeks ago he would have said he was humoring the woman. Now the joke felt like it was on him, and it influenced his already fluctuating mood more than he cared to admit.

"That was warranted," Sakura said. "Our chase was warranted."

"My death was warranted?" Itachi asked.

"You were an outlaw. The only reason there was no price on your head was that you were to be brought in before the Council for questioning."

"Regarding my knowledge of my brother's whereabouts," Itachi finished for her.

Expectedly, she hesitated. He would have thought less of her if she hadn't.

"Sasuke was declared an outlaw, too."

"Officially, yes," Itachi answered after some consideration. He didn't know if he truly wished to continue the conversation with the turn it had taken and with the worrisome readiness that he was exuding. Again, he didn't understand his willingness to entertain Sakura's nosiness.

"Does the double standard bother you?" Sakura asked. She was bold, but he already knew that. It was one of her best traits.

"Might I remind you of your boundaries with my person," Itachi said, and he could clearly see the indecisiveness seep into her eyes. How much could she step past those boundaries without having him snap?

Sakura was sure that she was right. Studying the Uchiha's still form, she was certain that she was right. Which was why it made no sense that he would try to backtrack now, when they both knew she was right. Uchiha Itachi was practical. He was analytical. Whether it was physical or psychological, Itachi did not enter a battle field if he had not accepted the likeliest outcome of said battle. This was a likely outcome; Sakura figuring out the truth about the drugs was a likely outcome. And now it had happened. She had figured it out. Itachi wouldn't enter a battle that he was certain to lose unless he actually wanted to lose it. And if he wanted to lose it, he wasn't allowed to backtrack like he had done just now.

And as always Sakura was honest when she wanted answers.

"You're trying to evade the topic," she said. "That means I'm correct in my assumption."

"Which particular assumption are you referring to? I find that they come aplenty," Itachi said in the most exasperated tone she had ever heard him use. It was almost enough to make her falter on the path she had set for herself, but no. She wouldn't falter. Not now. Itachi's open disinclination towards the topic was uncharacteristic, as was his participation in it. It was the perfect chance to get some answers, and Sakura was nothing if not determined in her goals.

"The double standard. You feel wrongly treated. You think that Sasuke would be welcomed back into the village even though he is an outlaw just like you were, and that you would never be allowed back inside. But you forget that you already have been allowed back inside, so you have no reason to think like that anymore," she said. "Old habits die hard, don't they?"

He had killed their family. Sasuke hadn't. Perhaps it could be said that Sasuke was treated with too much leniency because of that fact, but it could never be said that Itachi was treated too harshly for his less-than-admirable acts. Konoha would always go easy on Sasuke compared to Itachi. If Itachi had been welcomed back with silence and scornful eyes, the village would welcome Sasuke back with fanfare and song. But Itachi wasn't bitter about that. Not like Sakura was suggesting. Not anymore. He had accepted it long ago, but you could still believe something to be the truth without having to feel bitter about it. It was just that; the truth. Facts.

"I'm the alienation and my brother is not," Itachi said. "It's a fact. I feel nothing but acceptance of it."

"You can't claim you didn't except alienation as a consequence of your choice," Sakura said in a slightly backwards compliment. Unbeknownst to herself, she was using the voice that she normally reserved for enemy negotiations. The one that was meant to persuade, encourage and pacify. The one she strictly used when she didn't want to be the enemy.

"It was never a choice," Itachi said. "It was obligation and the expectation to conform to those."

"There are moral choices," Sakura said, blind to the fact that Itachi had let something very important slip. She could hardly be blamed. Sakura had never been good with the big picture. She was better at the miniscule details. Like the way that Itachi's face had gone still like the blank side of a rock, and while you could learn to school your expression, you shouldn't be able to completely remove it. Why, she thought and backpedaled. What was the last thing she had said? The last thing he had said?

"The king and the pawn," Itachi said, and Sakura didn't know what to do with that. No. That was a lie. She knew exactly what to do with that, but she wasn't ready to deal with it.

"Your shift is up," she said. "I'm next."

* * *

Her discussion with Itachi had brought something vital to her attention: they were not friends, but they had progressed to a relationship which invited disagreements and the open discussion thereof. They could hold an actual civilized conversation while executing no threats or bodily harm. The step was so grand that it had taken her this long to realize it.

"So, this is it?" Shikamaru asked with his eyes fastened on the building before them. "This ramshackle dump is the target's location?"

"It's a brothel," Sakura said. "If you pictured anything else, you set your expectations too high."

"Which is very likely, indeed," Neji added from the sideline, his frame outlined with the almost ethereal glow of the sun rising above the horizon behind him. It was dawn and the plan had been set into action.

"Separate and roam the area long enough to get a sense of the security level," Itachi said. "We will reconvene back here within the next thirty minutes and if security is nothing too severe, we're moving along to step three."

Let it be said that their Captain was nothing if not efficient. If Sakura should mention the greatest difference between having the Uchiha as Captain as opposed to Kakashi, it was definitely efficiency. Not efficiency in relation to success, though. That was on equal level with both men. It was rather efficiency in relation to time. In other words, Itachi was the fastest working Captain that she had ever served under.

"How are we certain our target is in there?" Sakura asked.

"We aren't," Itachi replied.

"Which means you're taking a gamble?" she asked. In hindsight, she really was questioning her superior far too much.

"If Hayashi isn't in there, we'll sweep his office and figure out where he is," Shikamaru said on behalf of Itachi.

"Either way, we will benefit from it. Provided that we don't get caught," Neji said. They all had a copy of a surveillance picture to go by, but Sakura still doubted that she would recognize Hayashi unless he was right up in her face. It would have been easier if they had had a taste of his energy, his chakra, but that was rarely ever the case with assassination missions. The targets were far too paranoid to be prancing about regularly in public, knowing that not only was there a considerable price on their head, but that they were also very much at risk of being killed by whoever they happened to pass on the street. They had their minions do trivial tasks such as shopping. Often those employees were faultily killed in place of their employer.

"What do you propose?" Itachi asked.

She looked at him. "What?"

"You are the official healer of the team," Itachi said. "If you want us to take specific safety precautions, we will abide by those."

Legally, he was right. The official medic of a team could overrun orders given by the Captain if there were grounds of medical risk to do so. Nevertheless, the fact hadn't occurred to her, because Kakashi never used legal excuses to ask for her input. He just asked out of habit.

"I propose nothing," she said. "Your strategy is superlative when it comes to time and optimality."

"The plan is settled then," Itachi said. "You have one hour at your disposal to do a thorough survey of the perimeter and memorize it. If security is either low or incompetent, we will enter the third phase of the plan."

They all prepared to take off.

"Go."


	9. Chapter Eight

**A/N: **Edited November 26, 2013

_If you are interested in my original novels and works, check out this site on facebook: com/arfrederiksen_

* * *

**Narcissus  
**By Frozzy

* * *

**Chapter Eight: **

She knelt in the mud of a roadside, scouting the northern side of the brothel for patrol teams. She didn't feel at home. She could work it, but it didn't feel as natural as it had done in the past. As for her career choice, Sakura had chosen to hone her skills as a fulltime healer at the hospital. The hospital was perpetually in need of staff, given that one or two employees dropped dead every second or third month, and healers weren't procured out of nowhere. It took training. Just as with everything else. Nevertheless, Sakura was still the determined and inhumanly strong woman on the battlefield that the Hokage had shaped her into becoming. Sakura loved challenges, both in mind and in brawn. She loved a challenging opponent, but she was unfit to battle those that were in the league of her current teammates. She was unfit to battle those that the three men killed on a regular basis, and she willingly admitted that. After all, one was not a good fighter if one did not know one's limits. She knew hers. She couldn't kill in cold blood. The other three men could. This assignment had forced her to reevaluate her hard-earned choices in life, and so far she didn't like it. She liked saving people more than she liked killing them. That was putting it bluntly, but her conscience was too large to kill and not feel bad about it afterwards. Everybody ought to feel bad after having killed someone, but some people were better at turning a blind eye to it. Sakura was both healer and fighter, two persons in one, and she couldn't change that.

"Sakura-san?"

She blinked, remembering that she wasn't alone, and turned her head to look at Neji.

"Sorry."

"It's time to reconvene," the jonin said in an almost gentle voice, and Sakura wondered how conflicted she looked at the moment.

"Right," she agreed with a curt nod. "We should-"

"On the other hand," Neji said, "it seems we will not have to."

She barely had time to process his warning before Itachi and Shikamaru dropped down beside them, landing noiselessly on the soft soil and crunchy leaves. Her eyes fell on Itachi first, and it took her little time to realize why.

"You can't have it on for more than thirty minutes," she said. He looked at her without seeing her. She held his gaze, though, and hoped that it would make him understand the severity of her order. The fright effect of his Sharingan had ceased to affect her, and she supposed it was a side effect from their sessions. She had become familiar with the mechanisms of it, just like she was with Kakashi's, and as such it no longer made her flinch when she was faced with it. She had no idea of knowing whether or not that fact bothered Itachi, but her qualified guess was yes. It had to, after all. It was his most favored weapon.

"I know," he said. He made no further inclination that he intended to follow her order, and she didn't push harder.

"Reports," he said.

Neji was first with his answer: "No regularity and no repeat appearances. All in all, no signs of organized security of any kind."

"The same here," Shikamaru added, "zip."

"And inside?" Itachi asked, referring solely to Neji who had the advantage of actually being able to answer that question. Basically, Neji would function as their map once they infiltrated the building. With the Byakugan at their disposal, who needed paper to tell them were to go? That was a fact which had never even been arguable and therefore never relevant to bring up. It was understood without discussion. Chances were that it was common procedure for the Hyuuga.

"Nothing too regular there, either," Neji said. "Groups of two and three appear to be circling the wings of the building within intervals of fifteen to thirty minutes. There should be time in between those patrols for us to go about our business unhindered."

"It's too obvious," Sakura said.

"Good point," Shikamaru said. "Perhaps closer surveillance would be wiser? No genjutsu is put into play, we can all tell that, but this still reeks of dirty play."

"Besides, we still need to work on a strategy that gets us inside the building unseen, and there's no saying that the security will stay low up until that point," Sakura added, earning a grunt of approval from Neji this time.

"After midnight the patrol schedule could chance," the Hyuuga said. "It's protocol for most businesses to have a higher level of security post midnight."

All three of them turned their attention to their Captain, ready for the final conclusion to be made. Itachi had remained silent for the duration of the discussion, and the deeply concentrated lines on his face were a testament to that silence. Their Captain was thinking hard, and so they waited, guarding themselves with patience until he made the decision. The decision was never made, however, because in that moment they all felt the subtle vibrations in the ground beneath them. Itachi was the first to react, the command falling from his lips with the ease of somebody accustomed to working under stress: "Scatter."

They scattered.

Personal experience brought Sakura in the direction of the forest. Both Shikamaru and Neji opted for the cleared road site. The distinction between the two battle tactics was clear: Sakura thought defense before offense. Healer or fighter, she was the Hokage's apprentice before anything else. Tsunade's one golden rule had always been to pick the battlefield before the enemy did. Pick the battle ground so that you would have the upper hand. Sakura wanted trees and shrubs. She wanted the many layers of the forest; the many floors of space that the towering trees created. She wanted vegetation because while most found it a hindrance in their battles and preferred an open space, her preferred battle tactic consisted of excessive maneuvering and dodging. As such, vegetation became a powerful tool for her to gain the upper hand in her fights.

She sensed the first hit of her pursuer. Ducking low on the ground, the hit missed her. As the dust from the ground settled down, she stood face to face with her opponent.

"Ah got ta pick first, sweetcheeks," the burly man said and grinned at her with yellowing teeth. "And pretty little gals with perky asses are just mah type."

As hypocritical as it was, she liked the fights even though the hated the deaths. The underlying risk that at any moment you could drop dead from a perfectly aimed hit was like an adrenaline rush. She wasn't suicidal. Sociopathic was the preferred term amongst her equals. They were all self-destructive, and they had all accepted it.

"Why don't you go for a grope then?" she told the large man and threw a nasty smile his way. The ground rumbled beneath them, followed by a thundering crack, which told them that the battle outside the forest had begun. As opposed to Neji and Shikamaru's positions, Sakura had no real track on Itachi's whereabouts.

"Don't mind if ah try," the man said, and lunged for her in a move that was far too advanced for an amateur. This man knew battle and often practiced it. Who were these men?

Sakura dodged the kick to her stomach, barely, and twisted around, elbowing the man in the soft flesh of his throat. Seemingly unaffected by the blow, he grabbed her elbow and hurled her to the ground. Her back hit the soil with a sickening crunch, and she could feel one or two of her ribs crack at the impact. Then his huge body was on top of her, and she had him where she wanted him. Drawing her knees up, she used the leverage of the ground to place a well-aimed hit to the man's groin. That move affected him. He backed up with a harsh exhale and a grunt of pain, and Sakura darted out of his reach. Her ribs hurt when she drew in a slow breath, but they weren't broken. She could play foul. In fact, she felt no remorse in doing so when she was clearly at a disadvantage in both height and body mass.

"Bitch," the man said with sick amusement painted on his face. God, his teeth were horrible, and the days old stubble on his face made it worse. He looked like a homeless man on muscle-enhancing drugs.

Their fight continued on an even level after that, interrupted only by the thundering cracks of the other battles going on somewhere in the vicinity. Sakura had no time to pause and heal her ribs as she would normally do, so she pushed the stinging pain aside and ignored how their condition gradually worsened. Her opponent preferred close combat and Sakura was fine with that. It was where she could do most damage herself. Eventually, the exchange of blows came to a momentary standstill.

"Who hired you?" Sakura called out between heavy pants. She furrowed her brow to take her mind off her hurting ribs and how dirt had run up her clothes from the many times that she had been down kissing the ground in the past five minutes.

"We ain't hired by no one," the man replied, all playfulness gone now that he had realized he was up against a qualified fighter and not a simple floozy. Sakura loved her sex; it made fifty percent of her opponents underestimate her skill.

"Then why attack random strangers in the middle of the night?" she asked across the distance, not believing the man for a second. At this point in the battle, the area of their fight was completely cleared of trees, mostly due to Sakura's effective punches. It now created a nice, enclosed battle ground for them to circle each other in.

"Shut ya mouth, missy. We don't answer to you!"

"So youare hired by someone," Sakura said. That was the wrong thing to do. In the blink of an eye, her opponent conjured forth an instrument that was too large to be called anything other than an instrument. It wasn't a weapon. It was something different, but she didn't know what else to call it. The weapon was an extension of his body, of his own flesh, and it resembled a sword in its shape, though that definition didn't do the humungous blade of razor-sharp flesh justice. It reminded her of a shark fin; deceivingly soft, yet deadly upon impact. Her opponent had created a sword of his own flesh, and it rested nicely in the palm of his right hand. Medically, it was very interesting. How did you add more flesh to your body and how did you shape it into something like that?

"What, you pulled that out of your ass?" Sakura asked. The effect was immediate. The man charged at her, and she wasn't ready. There wasn't really an excuse other than that. She just wasn't ready. He had the element of surprise on his side, and she just hadn't been ready. She tried to back up, but together with the pain of her ribs and her slow response, the blow would strike her no matter what. She twisted her body around, making a quick decision as to where she wanted the impact to land. But there was no impact. Itachi showed up. There was no impact, because Itachi showed up. He had his back turned to her, so she couldn't see what happened, but she could hear it. The wet, gurgling sound of her opponent spoke for itself. Itachi had cut the large man's throat. Sure enough, the lifeless body of her opponent dropped to the ground seconds later, accompanied by a heavy thud and a wet splatter, and for a long moment neither Sakura nor Itachi moved.

Grabbing her side with one hand, Sakura breathed heavily from exertion.

"Why did you do that?" she asked.

"You're welcome," Itachi replied and stepped around the dead body to check the pulse.

Up until then, Sakura had been ready to accept his interference. He had, after all, saved her from a nasty blow. She could admit and appreciate that. Now, as she saw the blood seeping out from the corner of the Uchiha's left eye, her calm broke. It was the stress from the past days; the humiliation and the frustration that had built up during their every interaction with each other. She should stop herself. If she lost her head, the Uchiha could revert to his old ways and try to kill her. She could be destroying weeks of progress. She could be destroying the civilized attitude that Itachi had developed towards her recently. But she didn't give a shit. The bastard could not do that. He could not go against her explicit orders and make his damned eye bleed.

"You," she said, and for once that simple word made Itachi look at her. "I do not need anybody to think that he needs to step in front of me, much less another damned Uchiha with authority issues."

Her voice came out angry and distorted. Blood trickled down Itachi's face from his eye, and Sakura took a step closer to him. She was blind to the dead body lying on the ground, and she almost tripped over it.

"You completely disregarded everything I said to you about your Sharingan," she said. "You have most likely whisked away the last month of progress I've made on your damned eyes, you ignorant self-obsessed ass. I told you that you couldn't use it unless it was life-threatening, and I highly doubt your fight was that hard. You have no other injuries than your eye. What did you think would happen? That I've just magically cured you for years to come, and now you can revert back to your old ways and the excessive use of your eyes? I told you no! It's a weapon! It's not a toy-"

She should have sensed his movement. She was close enough to the man to sense it, but she didn't. He grabbed her upper arm and yanked her into an angry kiss. It wasn't neat, and it wasn't pretty. Amidst the fusion of lips, the harsh bite of teeth and the violent pressure, Sakura could feel the sticky blood of Itachi's eye as it transferred over onto her own face. The warmth of the thick substance felt almost cool against her sweaty skin. Some of the blood entered the kiss, and the metallic flavor added to the absurdity of the situation.

Itachi's hand was at her waist, his grip pulling at the fabric of her shirt. Her own hand joined his, and then she didn't know what to do. She kept it there, on top of his, and waited. She couldn't breathe and her ribs hurt. Itachi shoved her to the side and backwards. Was this bloodlust? That weird thing all the authors back at Ino's bookshelf were so found of incorporating into their novels? She could see the appeal.

"Don't you do-"

"Shut up," Itachi cut her off. His voice was thick like the air between them. Sakura's mouth dropped open, partially in indignation and partially because Itachi chose that moment to attach his teeth to the soft juncture between her neck and shoulder. She wanted this emotion, she thought. She wanted his emotions. This was an emotion. She wanted whatever emotion he was willing to give. The realization balled up in her throat like a fat unyielding apple, and it became even harder to breathe. No. No, no.

"Itachi," she said. "The others are approaching. Back up. Now."

Sakura could feel the willpower that it took for him to back up, and despite how flattering that was, he was almost too slow to do it. Shikamaru and Neji dropped down into the clearing seconds later. They looked rumpled and battle worn. Both men took a good look at the scene, and Sakura decided that she was nowhere near ready to handle the situation. Luckily, the two jonin were wise enough not to point out Sakura's bloodied face, her lack of a bleeding injury and Itachi's very obvious injury which was conveniently located on his face.

"Did you dispose of the bodies?" Itachi's asked and cut through the bubble that was Sakura's jumbled mind. His voice was muted, almost as if the bubble was physical and had deafened her. She blindly reached up a hand and quite obviously proceeded to wipe away the blood smudged across her chin and mouth.

"I need to heal your eyes as soon as possible to minimize further possible damage," she said and surprised herself with the steadiness of her voice. She had never been a good actress, but this was good.

Itachi nodded. "We are making camp for the night."

"Neji and I will clear the perimeter and locate a safe place," Shikamaru said, catching onto the situation quicker than Neji. Or perhaps not, Sakura thought, given that Neji made no protests against being ordered around by a fellow teammate and not their Captain.

"You have fifteen minutes," Itachi said and the two jonin took off as noiselessly as they had appeared.

"Let me see your eye," Sakura said when they were alone. His right eye was bloodshot, but the left one was a lot worse. She was surprised that he had been able to locate her face, much less her lips, earlier. Then again, he had lived with near blindness for several years before she came along.

"Now is not the time," the Uchiha said and turned away from her.

"Stop being cross and let me do my job," she said, but there was little bite to it. She felt exhausted and drained now that all anger had left her. Her words appeared to work. Or maybe it was her tone of voice that did the trick. She had sounded quite defeated, she thought. Itachi turned back around to face her again. His expression was unreadable. She stepped closer and put her fingers against his temples in a light pressure. She ignored the flare of heat that burned bright in her stomach. For a long moment, she was focused on her task. Itachi watched her in silence. She was so focused that she didn't see his hand move. Not until she felt his fingers trace along her jaw. Her concentration broke, and she watched the bloodied fingers of Itachi, as he held them out in front of her.

"Your jaw. There is still some of my blood left," the Uchiha said. Sakura's tongue felt too thick to be inside her mouth. Was this an apology? A peace offering? An olive branch?

"It's fine," she said, the words uncooperative.

He dropped his hand to his side: "Proceed."

"The damage has only affected maybe forty percent of my work," she said, dropping her own hand and backing up to give him space. "We've been slowed down, but it's nothing too severe. I won't have you using the Sharingan for the remainder of the mission, and that's an order. You've done enough needless damage to my work already. It's dishonoring."

She could have imagined it, but she thought she saw amusement shine through the trademark blankness of those coal black eyes.

"As you wish," Itachi said, sounding aloof.

"You listen to me this time," she said. "At this rate, you'll blind yourself worse than ever. I can only heal damaged cells so many times before it's beyond even my abilities."

"As you wish, doctor," the Uchiha said again and arched a brow that looked too delicate for such a coarse personality.

"And don't mock me," Sakura said.

"You misread my intention," he said. Sakura refrained from rolling her eyes, and instead rubbed at the blood on her jaw. It was the same spot where Itachi's fingers had teased her skin. The red substance peeled off in small flakes that either rolled up into tiny balls or flattened out and stuck to her fingertips. She growled softly under her breath, wiping her hands on her skirt.

"You have an inferiority issue," Itachi's blasé words reached her ears. "Would it by chance have anything to do with my brother and the Uzumaki boy?"

"I would think that's quite obvious and not very surprising when you consider the people I surround myself with," she said. "And you know that Naruto and I are the same age, so calling him boy is an insult to me, too. He's not a boy and I'm not a girl."

"The blow would have been fatal," Itachi said, referring to the blow from shark fin guy.

"It was still my blow to be hit by," Sakura said. "I've handled worse. But thank you."

"As a healer, you have been trained to keep yourself out of harm's way, given the healer's vital role in the team's survival. Yet you expect that we too have not been trained to keep our healer safe for that very same purpose?"

In all fairness, that perspective had never occurred to her.

"I'm not just a healer," she said. "I fight, too."

"Not officially."

She finally realized that he was warning her. He was threatening to use his authority if she did not stick to the boundaries of her employment. While he might have the upper hand in this case, she still had one card left that she would take gross advantage if he chose to violate his authority like that.

"Neither am I your official healer," she said. "But I'm still healing your eyes."

This time, the bemusement in his eyes was clear. Neji and Shikamaru reentered the scene then, dropping down from the sky like spiders hanging from their webs.

"We've found a spot for camp," Shikamaru said and either missed or ignored the tense atmosphere. Sakura bet on the latter.

* * *

"Did anybody get valuable information out of their opponent?" Itachi asked, lying still on the cave floor where Sakura was working on his eyes. Once a day. They stuck to the schedule no matter the circumstances and working conditions. Especially after today, Sakura thought. She was still angry at Itachi for using his eyes. A cold and chilled cave wasn't the most optimal working conditions for what she was doing, but they were good enough.

"They have an employer," Shikamaru said, "got no name though."

"Same here," Neji said.

"If they were under Hayashi, he's downright stupid to encourage a fight so close to his business. Publicity and all. A guy like him cares about reputation," Sakura said in an airy voice. She was focused on the task before her, and she didn't truly hear the discussion going on around her. Itachi's eyes shifted to her face, and she cursed aloud when it broke her hold on the cells within his eye.

"We've done this enough times already," she said, forgetting propriety as she addressed him. "Do not change visual focus. It'll make me lose hold of the area I'm working on."

Her thighs and kneecaps were aching from kneeling on the harsh stone floor, and she had healed only the most severe damage done to her ribs, opting for healing the broken bones fully at a later time. Moreover, she was still pissed about the episode earlier. Also the kiss, but she would have to deal with that later.

"If they weren't Hayashi's men, it limits our options," Shikamaru said and observed the scene between Sakura and Itachi.

"Perhaps it's related to the trade routes," Neji suggested. He sounded more bored than thoughtful. "Then again, that would suggest that those two aren't connected, and our earlier sources has confirmed that they are."

"Maybe Hayashi is just stupid then, and maybe he did order those men to attack us so close to his business," Shikamaru said, and Sakura felt inclined to agree if she wasn't so focused on finishing up the last repairs on Itachi's eyes.

"Done," she announced and leaned back onto her haunches. She threw a look around the cramped space of the cave. "Anyone else need a round?"

"Fix yourself first," Itachi said and got up onto his feet. He blinked a few times to adjust his vision. She didn't fight him on his order. She hurt still. Her ribs hurt still. Sitting back up against the side of the cave, she took a deep breath and went to work on mending her own cracked bones. Experience made the process almost tedious. She had done this so many times that it no longer posed an actual challenge. The real issue was the time that it took, however easy it had become. Sakura lost interest quickly, a result of her excessive working schedule and demanding friends. It was no secret.

"Got you good?" Shikamaru's voice drifted across the space.

"Caught me off guard," she said. "Bastard had some tricks up his sleeve."

"Rusty?"

"Wanna have your own try?" she asked and dared the strategist to own up to his words.

"Nah, you know all my tricks. It wouldn't be fair."

"How gracious of you," she said and and received a half-assed smirk in return.

"So, what's the plan for tomorrow?" Neji asked Itachi who stood tall and immobile by the entrance of the cave.

"We will enter the estate at the first sign of daybreak," Itachi said, needing minimal time to make the decision. It made sense. Security would have a shift from night to day, and the chance of Hayashi being present was still a good deal above fifty percent. Brothels prospered at night, after all, and what boss would be negligent enough not to overlook his business when it was at its most profitable? Besides, they couldn't push it any further. Not when they no longer had the element of surprise on their side. If anything, Hayashi was sitting in his office right now, working out ways to counterattack their upcoming attack.

"I don't believe it was regular security," Sakura said. "They were too professional."

"They were too much like us, you mean," Shikamaru said, having caught onto her train of thought easily. He did that a lot. "Perhaps it was a special team working for our target? For Hayashi?"

"If they were even related to the target," she pointed out. "We still can't be sure."

"Second hand sources aren't all that trustworthy," Neji agreed.

"That still raises the question about who they did work for."

"It is of no consequence who they worked for," Itachi said from his lonesome spot by the entrance. If Sakura didn't know better, she would believe he was guarding the enclosed space and his team within it. "Dwelling on these matters will complicate the course of action, which is decidedly not the conditions I wish to lead a team under. Focus on the next step. Our attackers are dead. They are of no consequence. If they weren't employed by Hayashi, it doesn't matter, since we have to focus on our objective, which is Hayashi. And if they were employed by Hayashi, we will find out soon enough."

He was right, of course, though he could hardly order them not to ponder. Or be an ass about it, Sakura added in her mind. She hissed when her ribs finally clicked into place.

"There," she said. "All patched up."

"Try to stay so for the rest of the mission," Neji said and Sakura shot him a lopsided grin. She missed Naruto, she thought. God, she missed her best friend.


	10. Chapter Nine

**A/N: **Edited November 30, 2013

_If you are interested in my original novels and works, check out this site on facebook: com/arfrederiksen_

* * *

**Narcissus  
**By Frozzy

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**Chapter Nine**

Itachi was not a spontaneous individual. He knew that himself. He was analytical and logical. He had been bred to turn out as such. Konoha had wanted a prodigy. It was no secret. They still did. Every village did. Later, he had been made into a scapegoat, but initially they had wanted a prodigy.

Itachi was also an individual who knew what he wanted and went for it without hesitation. He calculated and he waited, but he didn't hesitate.

His kiss with Sakura was explainable; they shared a mutual attraction. The trigger hadn't been the battle or the blood. The trigger had been Sakura's total disregard for propriety and etiquette. She had yelled and screamed at him. Few people did. If more had done it, Itachi might have realized sooner that he liked it. Or maybe that was only the case with Sakura. He couldn't know for sure, and he preferred not to presume anything. Of course, she had yelled and screamed at him because he had gone against her orders and used his Sharingan. Truthfully, it had been instinct. He had always relied on his eyes, so it had been both habit and instinct when he had activated them. And, once the damage was done, he had simply rolled with it and used the Sharingan like he would have done before the sessions with the medic.

Itachi admired determination and focus in his bed partners, few of them as there had been over the years. It was coincidence that anger was an emotion he responded well to. Sakura had been both determined and angry, and that was why the kiss had happened.

"We're moving as one unit?" Sakura asked.

"Yes. Hyuuga takes the front and clears the road," Itachi answered. "I will take the back."

The four of them sat crouched in the brushwood of the brothel once more. Now, after having slept two hours inside a cold and clammy cave, the sun was breaking the horizon in the east and the group was prepared to finish the mission. The dirt under their feet was soft and unspoiled, indicating that their current position was a non-trafficked area and a safe rendezvous point. Sakura's ribs were healed, as were all injuries within the team, but she wouldn't take a second hit to the newly mended bones. The same went for Itachi. She had given him strict orders only to use the Sharingan if it was a matter of life or death. Again. This time he had better listen. Up until now, he had kept the weapon inactivated, but Sakura didn't dare presume anything once the final battle began. Whether or not he realized it, Itachi was dependent on his Sharingan to a degree were it was more damaging than helpful. Sakura had to rid him of that habit when they were back in Konoha. Or perhaps that would be too much personal engagement.

"We should be out in maximum half an hour if we can set a cleared route to the target's position," Itachi said. Once inside, Neji would move fast up at the front of the group. Sakura hadn't worked with Neji before, not like this, but she now understood the effectiveness of his bloodline limit better than theory had ever helped her understand it before.

"Go," Itachi said with a nod at Shikamaru. Shikamaru picked open the window that they sat crouched below. Then, after he had nudged it open, they were inside with Neji leading the way. Sometimes the easiest way inside was the least expected one and therefore the smartest one. 'Easy' was underrated in their profession. Nobody expected easy. 'Easy' gave you the element of surprise.

As their group flew down the various corridors of the brothel, they met their first resistance five minutes into trespassing. Up until then, the pathways and corridors had been empty with a sort of stale smell haunting the small spaces and cramped halls. The smell of sex and sweat was ever present, but Sakura blocked it out like she would have blocked out the smell of blood or the smell of baked bread. It didn't matter what the smell was; it just wasn't a counting factor when you were this close to your goal. Eyes on the prize, they always said.

Neji sidestepped the guards. Shikamaru, who was behind Neji, delivered an effective punch to the face of the largest man. His nose cracked soundly and he went down hard. His partner almost tripped over him. Sakura dodged the partner, and Itachi took him out with a dull thud that piqued Sakura's curiosity. She almost craned her neck backwards to see how Itachi had done it.

A third female guard turned the corner belatedly and got a hit in on Neji. Neji knocked her unconscious with a blow to the head, and her body tumbled across the floor. She would wake up with broken bones, for sure, though it could have been worse. With Sakura's brute force, Sakura would have smashed in the woman's skull, but it seemed that Neji cared more about his number of kills than Sakura did. He kept them low, and Sakura mowed her way through them. Sakura pushed that thought aside for another time.

Five minutes later they were situated within the office of Hayashi. And it was empty. But it didn't look abandoned. There were still papers scattered across the desk and a pair of pants thrown over the back of the chair. It was homely, and Sakura chest hollowed out for a second as she was reminded that their target was a person and not an object.

"We gonna retreat?" Shikamaru asked. He was guarding the door and checking for more of Hayashi's guards. By now, someone should have discovered the three guards that they had taken down earlier. They didn't have much time left. They had to move fast, but now Hayashi was missing.

"No," Itachi responded. "The target knew we were here."

"He hasn't had time to leave the building," Sakura said. "Also, he wouldn't leave if he knew that we were here. He loves his business too much to leave it in our hands. He must have relocated to someplace else within the building. Someplace he thinks is safe from us."

"Yes," Itachi said. "Hyuuga and Nara, dispatch and search above ground. Haruno and I will take below ground."

The brothel had an underground compound of locked rooms and spacious chambers. This was where Sakura and Itachi began their search for Hayashi. As they delved deeper into the heart of the building, Sakura purposely didn't try to think of the uses for the rooms that they passed by. One room made Sakura stop when she caught a glimpse of chains, restrictive fabric and unconventional punishment tools. Unlike earlier, when the four of them had breezed along corridors and hallways, Itachi and Sakura crept through the underground pathways like noiseless mice. The air was stale down there, heavy with something indefinable and slick, and the eerie silence grated on her ears. Sakura suspected that the silence was one reason behind Itachi's caution and slow approach. She was sweating, she noticed. Nothing profusely, but a light layer that shone on her face, neck and collarbone. Her skin was clammy too, with the lack of air inside the tunnel-like corridors. Moldy, she thought. The air was moldy and thick, and it would have dulled her senses if she hadn't been so focused of keeping them alert.

"Do you-" she began to whisper, but she was silenced with a look from Itachi. There were voices ahead of them. She could hear it now. They were speaking in muted tones, and with the distance it was impossible to decipher what they were saying. Itachi gave Sakura a second look, as if to stress his earlier point, and she returned it with a disdainful glare. Disdainful, contrite, yeah.

"What… you think?"

"Boss said… should be soon, now."

They were getting closer and the voices became more distinguished.

"He safe?"

"Ya know I can't tell ya where," the second voice said. Some shuffling filled the silence. Sakura and Itachi had stopped moving, separated from the voices only by the 'L'-shape of the corridor that they were standing in.

"What does it even matter?" the first voice asked. "Not like I can abandon post and go to-"

Itachi moved without warning Sakura. There wasn't even an indication of his body tensing up in preparation. He was just gone. When Sakura caught up with the situation, she followed Itachi around the corner of the wall. There she stopped and observed the scenery. She didn't want to make a reckless or dumb move. There was one decapitated body on the floor with blood oozing out from the sliced neck. The head lay a couple of inches to the left of the dead man's foot. Another man, still alive, stood frozen in fear and watched Itachi as if the Uchiha was a bloodthirsty hellhound. Itachi didn't need help, Sakura thought and stood still. She would only interfere if he needed assistance. If not, her interference could mess up everything.

"Where?" Itachi asked the man with eyes as wide as saucers.

"Room seventy four, down that hallway," the man said with his eyes glued to his decapitated partner bleeding on the ground by his feet. When the pool of blood grew bigger and reached the man's feet, he didn't even have the sense to back up as the thick substance flooded his toes and sandals. Sakura almost pitied the guy. Her guard would have been down too, and she would have reacted along the same lines if Naruto had been the one lying on the floor, soaking the ground with his death. The attack had come out of nowhere, and being spared was almost more painful than being the dead guy.

"We're going in without the rest?" Sakura asked Itachi. Itachi opened his mouth to answer. Then he closed it again.

"What?" Sakura asked, suddenly wary of the strange response.

"He is lying," the jonin said softly. The statement triggered no response from the man standing indecisively beside his friend's lifeless body. Shock did that to you. Made you unresponsive; professional or not.

"Don't use your eyes," Sakura said. "I know what you're hinting at, and no, I'm not allowing it. Believe it or not, but people who have no convenient bloodline limit at their disposal have other ways to achieve the truth."

"Indulge me," Itachi said. That was the moment when their last standing opponent woke up from his near comatose state. He charged at Itachi, mindless with either rage or fear on behalf of his dead partner, but Sakura was in the way. She managed to kick the man in the gut, after which Itachi grabbed the man by his neck. This left Sakura sandwiched in between the two men with her face pressed up against Itachi's shoulder. She stood still and unmoving, knowing that any movement could compromise the result of what was about to happen. The man was tense behind her. When a harsh breath fanned out across the back of her neck, she knew that Itachi had tightened his grip on the man's throat.

"Where is Hayashi?" Itachi asked again, and his voice sounded so dead that Sakura felt a piece of her inner child shrivel up and die. She now realized that throughout all their encounters in the past, Itachi had never showed any true killing intent toward her and Naruto. He had showed plenty of malicious intent, but she had never before been this close to the Uchiha and felt like she did now; utterly and completely horrified. He wasn't scary. He was beyond such a simple definition.

"The room at the end of the corridor," their opponent said at last.

There was a gurgling sound and another harsh breath. "'s the truth!"

The words were distorted, but the meaning was clear enough. In front of her, Itachi moved closer as he adjusted his grip on the man behind her, and for a moment Sakura slipped away from her surroundings as she got a whiff of Itachi's scent. It was a pleasant mix of pine, coriander and rainwater. An earthy scent, she thought. It was around the same time that she heard a loud snap and the breathing behind her stopped. A paused ensued, one in which neither Sakura nor Itachi moved.

"At least you're sure you got the true answer?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Given you just killed our only potential clue, I hope so."

There was a huff of air against her scalp, and Sakura thought it was a laugh. She caught herself quirking her lips in return and quickly schooled her face into a more proper expression.

"Do not worry," the Uchiha said. He dumped the body to the floor, finally, and stepped away from Sakura. Then, before she even knew of it herself, Sakura's buried her clenched fist in Itachi's face. To his credit, he didn't back up. He took the hit, the impact turning his head to the side where Sakura could see a nasty blue bruise already forming.

"I toldyou not to," she said. It wasn't so much the fact that he had turned on the Sharingan and ignored her order. She had expected him to at some point, really. It was more so the fact that for the past ten minutes, Sakura had felt completely out of control of the occurrences around her, and she knew that it was a deliberate move on Itachi's part. Keep the team medic safe; keep her from fighting. It might be petty, but she knew that he wasn't above such pettiness.

"I apologize," Itachi said and angled his head back to its proper face forward position.

"No," Sakura answered in a clipped voice. "You don't. Not really."

He studied her for a moment.

"I don't," he said. When Sakura's fist went for him this time, he was done taking such treatment from her. He grabbed her fist within his larger palm and applied enough pressure to make Sakura flinch.

"We have two dead bodies and a possible location for our target," he reasoned. "I would think it unwise to stall any longer for internal team complications."

"Team complications? This isn't team complications, Uchiha, it's you and me. It's you not abiding by your medical treatment. A medical treatment I've worked my ass off trying to complete and which you've now ruined two times in a row."

She dropped her fist and Itachi released it automatically.

"Just keep it on the low side from now on," she said with a defeated shake of her head. "I obviously can't keep you from using it at all, and I would rather not haveall my work ruined."

"The situation is comparable to you being denied your chakra-induced strength," Itachi pointed out. She had to admit that he had a valid point there.

"Let's just move on and fetch the others," she said. "We are reconvening before going for Hayashi, right?"

Precisely five minutes later, the four of them were inside the room that Itachi's dead opponent had pointed out to them. And, truthfully, the room had formerly held Hayashi within it. Past tense being the keyword.

"He's dead," Shikamaru said.

"This is an unexpected turn of events," Neji said a bit more helpfully.

"He took poison," Sakura said with a look at the dead body of Hayashi. "It's the acidic scent you can smell."

Her eyes automatically scanned the room for any possible residue left of the poison. It was liquid, thankfully, or else she would have evacuated the room upon immediate entrance.

Itachi moved closer to the dead body of their target. The rest of them were still immobile, trying to process that they had fought their way to their target in vain. Or, well, not completely in vain. Hayashi had most likely killed himself becauseof them; because he had known of their presence and had seen no other way out than to commit suicide before they showed up and killed him. It just felt so-

"Anticlimactic," Shikamaru said what everybody was thinking. "He spared us the trouble of killing him himself."

"I understand how," Sakura began, "but not why. Did he truly feel this threatened by us?"

"We were a minor influence on the larger perspective," Itachi replied and crouched down next to the dead man whose eyes were staring up into nothing. Sakura had never liked the eyes of a dead person. Eyes were for the living.

"We were few among many," Neji said. "We were the drop that spilled the cup."

It still felt anticlimactic.

"I guess we're celebrating tonight then," Shikamaru said. "Cap?"

Sakura had expected Itachi to send Shikamaru one of those looks he constantly sent her. The look that said 'wrong time and wrong place'. She hadn't expected him to actually agree.

"Yes," the Uchiha replied with a small twitch of his lips. "I think a celebration is in order."

* * *

Sakura was no stranger to bars and large quantities of alcohol. Her accidental encounter with Itachi in Grass all that time ago was a testament to that. This bar was nothing out of the ordinary. In its own way, it largely resembled the underground section of the brothel that they had just left. The light was dim. At places it was completely lacking, which Sakura was sure came in handy for the more adventurous patrons. The air inside the room was like a vacuum; heavy and suctioning. If you closed your eyes and pretended to be in a different village and with different company, it felt like home.

Sakura had sat with Itachi for a while now. Shikamaru had disappeared outside to grab a smoke some time ago, and around the same time Neji had announced that he needed a refill. Neither of them had returned, and Sakura hadn't bothered to keep them in sight once they abandoned ship.

"'S funny," she said to Itachi.

"What is funny?" he asked. He sounded bored, but he wouldn't have responded if that had been the case. Sakura's inebriated mind knew that much. It encouraged her to continue.

"In profile, your nose is straight, but it doesn't look like that from this angle," she said and reached up towards the Uchiha's face to drag the pad of her finger down the line of his nose. She rested her finger against the slightly curved tip, before she let her hand fall back into her lap. Sakura knew that Itachi wouldn't have allowed her to enter his private space like this if it hadn't been for their kiss. Just then, Sakura spotted Shikamaru in the distance, and it drew her attention away from Itachi. Shikamaru was chatting up a woman in black stockings and high heels. Sakura still had no idea where Neji was.

"Would you pick her up?" she asked Itachi with a nod towards Shikamaru's lady friend.

"That would depend on many things," Itachi answered.

"Heels are bad for your spine," Sakura said and ran her thumb along the hemline of her skirt. She knew she was about to ask something stupid then.

"You think I should wear heels more often?"

"No," Itachi said with his eyes sweeping across the multiplying occupants of the dingy bar.

"I think I should," Sakura said. "Would accentuate m'legs and all."

"Your legs need no accentuation."

"Thanks," the medic replied, misreading the compliment for an insult. She was about to get up from her seat and go over to Shikamaru, when Itachi caught her blurry gaze and held it. Okay. He had something to say, Sakura thought. She sat back down.

"Beauty alone does not hold my interest for more than a week," Itachi said. Sakura's stomach flipped inside out and curled up into a protective ball. Itachi had called her naïve once before.

"Why did you kiss me?" she asked.

"I wanted to," he answered.

"'Cuse me," she said. "Need to go to the restroom."

Ten minutes later, as Sakura was staring at her raccoon eyes and matted skin in the cracked mirror above the sink, she decided that the lighting in the ladies room was thoroughly unflattering. She looked like crap. Like a sack of crap. She missed Naruto. She always missed him, but now it was even worse. In an angry motion, she turned off the hot water and prepared to exit the cramped room. She should probably go sleep her alcohol off. If not, something ugly would surely happen, and she wouldn't be able to account for it once she woke up with a splitting headache and a sore body in a room that didn't necessarily have to be hers. She had passed one or two men on her way to the restroom that she wouldn't mind inviting home. Then there was Itachi, of course, though that was so much more complicated. And she couldn't do complicated when she was drunk. Or, well, she actually did complicated best when she was drunk. It was the consequences after that weren't so good.

"Bed," she said to herself. She flung out her arm and pushed her way out the door. She continued down the corridor and back towards the bar where she had seen Shikamaru moments earlier. She reached him, completely ignorant of the woman who had her body wrapped around the jonin like a vine.

"Goin' to bed," she said too close to Shikamaru's face. Her depth perception was off.

"Might wanna pass that on to Itachi," Shikamaru said.

"Don't wait up," Sakura replied, ignoring his suggestion and continuing her own imaginary conversation.

"Whatever," the strategist said and let the medic wander off without further protest.

The cool night air cleared up Sakura's fuzzy mind. She had barely stepped a foot outside before she was overwhelmed by the urge to simply take off and run, her feet hitting the soil in a steady beat. Predictable like a drum and the rise of the sun. She had rounded the corner of the bar when she realized that she had no idea which direction to take. She didn't remember where their inn was. She didn't remember what direction it lay in. She came to an immediate halt, debating whether she should keep walking in a random direction or return to the bar. Her choice was taken away from her when she sensed Itachi coming up behind her. Figures, she thought. She turned around to face him.

"You need to report a departure," he said, but didn't put much feeling into it.

"We're off duty," Sakura said. She didn't care why he was there, though a tiny voice inside her head pointed out that the Uchiha had went out of his way to follow her. He had followed her.

"We are off duty when we pass the gates of Konoha," Itachi said.

"'Nd you would know so much about those gates, wouldn't you?" she asked. His eyes flickered, and Sakura sobered up enough to realize her blunder.

"I forgot the way back," she said. "Can you point out the direction?"

"I could," the Uchiha responded. "Though I doubt your intoxicated mind would be able to tell the difference between south and north if I chose to tell you."

The insult was probably the most heartfelt response she had ever gotten from the man. And it wasn't even very mean, but it was the way in which he had said it.

"No matter. I'll find m'way."

It was fine. She was in no need of a chaperone to defend her virtue. Those who dared assault her would quickly find themselves missing vital reproductive organs. Also, there was no actual virtue to protect in the first place, so it was bad metaphor, anyway.

"Haruno."

Sakura stopped mid-step and looked back over her shoulder at Itachi.

"The opposite direction. Go directly to bed," he said. Sakura fought off a smile. He might have kissed her, but this was so much better than that. If she had had a journal, this would have filled an entire section in it, and she would have dotted the 'i's with hearts and other girly stuff. No self-respecting ninja kept a journal, though. That was just wrong. Her thoughts sufficiently distracted, Sakura changed route and followed the direction that Itachi had pointed out to her.


	11. Chapter Ten

**A/N: **Edited December 8, 2013

_If you are interested in my original novels and works, check out this site on facebook: com/arfrederiksen_

* * *

**Narcissus  
**By Frozzy

* * *

**Chapter Ten**

Konoha still stood when they returned. Not that Sakura had expected anything else, but there was always a nagging worry that you would return to a vessel of the place that you had left behind. Every shinobi feared returning to a city in which they no longer felt at home. For some, that fear was even the reason that they never returned at all.

Their group of four separated after the first step through the gates. Itachi went off towards the eastern part of town, Neji went directly for the training grounds and Shikamaru mumbled something about unfinished business with a family friend. There was no great heartfelt goodbye. Odds were that they would bump into each other within the next two days. They all had to hand in their mission reports, and they would most surely meet by accident for that. The deadline was the same, after all, and very few shinobi were fast on deadlines.

Upon separating, Sakura went in the direction of the Hokage Tower, knowing that she would find the person she was looking for on her way there. Naruto was easy to find. In fact, he often tended to find you instead. Kakashi was a bit more difficult, though he was predictable to a certain degree. You found Kakashi in the quiet corners of town, and you found Naruto in the loud center of town. Sai was an enigma. Sakura could never seem to find him whenever she purposely set out to do so, and she had stopped trying.

"Sakura?"

Sakura blinked and came to a halt.

"Kakashi," she said, and cursed her luck. Good or bad, she didn't know. The older man was flanked by Genma and a second jonin whose name Sakura couldn't remember. He was one of Kakashi's more regular companions, and Sakura made a mental note to ask for the guy's name some other time. It felt wrong not to know it.

"Did you just return?" Kakashi asked.

"Yeah. You haven't seen Naruto around anywhere, have you?"

"I'm happy to see you, too."

"Sure," Sakura said. She wanted to find Naruto, and she felt guilty for pushing Kakashi to second in line. No, that wasn't true. She felt guilty for not feeling guilty for pushing Kakashi to second in line. With Naruto, there was a special sort of familiarity and consolation that no one else could provide. Co-dependence wasn't rare in their line of work. It was just rare that both people were alive to share it. Sakura and Naruto were a package deal, and Sakura wasn't dumb enough to believe that this would also have been the case if Sasuke had never left the village. If Sasuke had stayed, Naruto would be a different person. So would she for that matter. She could already feel herself changing under the influence of Itachi.

"Did the mission go well?" Kakashi asked. He had used the voice of a teacher. She was busted.

"Yes, yes, it went fine. Nothing out of the ordinary happened."

"Kakashi, you know I respect your fondness for being late and all, but personally I'd really rather not be late for this thing, so if we could wrap it up here, that would be awesome," Genma said. He was more perceptive than his carefree spirit let on, and Sakura suspected that he had sensed her failing concentration, too.

"Yes, yes," Kakashi said. "Come by my place later, Sakura."

"I'll find you after I've met up with Naruto," she said. She needed a reality check. Kakashi could give her that later, but right now Naruto was her first priority. She found him south of the Hokage Tower. It wasn't a part of town that he regularly visited, so it took longer to find him. She had tried his apartment first, but that had been empty. Then she had resorted to asking people on the street. Konoha was big, but Naruto's reputation was just as big, and he was subject to the rumor mill more often than Sakura herself, though she could also hold her own in that fight. His blond mop of hair caught her attention amongst the majority of dark heads flocking the road, and Sakura was hit with a wave of nausea that made her stop dead in her tracks.

"Sakura-chan!"

He stood by the side of the road where the traffic was lesser and quieter. He was in a group of three: Naruto, Lee and a third nameless guy. Sakura had never adjusted to the idea that Kakashi and Naruto had created a social circle in which she was not introduced to all the faces. She didn't feel left out, but she felt alienated, and she knew that was wrong. She knew that she had no right to feel like that. In Kakashi's defense, his social circle was probably something that he had acquired prior to his friendship with Sakura. With Naruto it was different. He hadn't even had the resemblance of a social circle back in the day with Team Seven, and Sakura hated herself for begrudging him that now. Sakura also had a couple of close friends from the hospital that she had kept for herself. Blaming Naruto for the same was double standards. Sakura had a jealous streak that was as strong as Naruto's determination on a bad day (because nothing could rival Naruto's determination on a good day). Sakura's former rivalry with Ino was a testament to that jealous streak. But now, as an adult, she fought it every hour of the day. She knew how unflattering and unfair it was.

"Sakura-chan!"

Naruto's second yell, more emphasized and accompanied by a frantic wave, set Sakura's feet into action. She crossed the street to where Naruto stood. She nodded her head at Lee and the other guy, before she was pulled into a hug by an overzealous Naruto.

"When did you get back?" he asked and pulled back to get a proper look at her face. She saw the exact moment where he realized that something was wrong. The glint of mischief remained in his eyes, but if you had spent enough time around the man, you could see beyond the ever present opportunism and see what lay underneath. Right now, Naruto was concerned. And perhaps angry, Sakura thought. Trust it to Naruto to defend her honor. He always automatically assumed that somebody had pulled a fast one on her and hurt her.

"Just now, actually," Sakura said.

"Welcome home, Sakura-san! Did the mission go well?" Lee asked.

"No casualties and only minor injuries. Could have gone a lot worse."

Fifteen minutes later, Naruto had managed to detach himself from the group, and he and Sakura wandered about the village for a while, until they settled on the lake as a permanent hold. They walked down the lakeside, Naruto kicking pebbles into the water and Sakura watching him do it. Sakura liked to call it post-mission rehabilitation. Bonding. Resurfacing. There were many names for it, and they both knew what it was. Naruto let Sakura have it. He waited for her to get her mind back in order, and she knew that took a lot of control on his part.

"Itachi kissed me," she said.

"I knew it!" Naruto said. A nearby flock of birds took off from the ground in a whirlwind of feathers and tiny torpedoing bodies. "I knew that the bastard would-"

"It was consensual, Naruto," Sakura said.

"I- wha? Consensus-what?"

Her use of a big word had been deliberate. Obviously. Naruto's vocabulary tended to downgrade when he was upset and Sakura misused that fact quite often.

"I participated," she said. "I kissed back, okay?"

"Why?"

She hated adult conversations with Naruto, but not because he was childish or immature. He had grown into adulthood quite nicely, but he had too much insight into the workings of her mind, and he always hit the nail right on the head.

"I don't know," she lied.

"Bullshit."

"All right, so I do have an idea," she said. "Will this be an issue between us?"

"Is it going to continue?" Naruto asked, straight and to the point.

"I don't know."

They were no longer kids. Naruto wouldn't beam and smile at her no matter what decisions she made in life. And with this confession in particular, she knew that she was treading on unstable ground. As opposed to the days of their early friendship, Sakura didn't have Naruto's unconditional support in this matured form of their friendship. She didn't want it, to be honest.

"Then I don't know either," Naruto said. Sakura nodded, accepting the fact for what it was. Her chest felt both dull and heavy. This was the only big disagreement that the two of them had had this year. Their worldview tended to be very similar, and Sakura admitted that this time it was her view that had changed. Naruto didn't see Itachi the way she did. She supposed it couldn't be helped with the amount of time that she spent alone with the Uchiha. He wasn't as detached and apathetic as he made it look like. Sakura had discovered this after the first couple of sessions at the hospital. Before the mission, even. She wasn't even sure that he did it on purpose, or if it was a subconscious thing. A lifetime of being hunted could do that to you, she thought. Sakura wouldn't have included Naruto in this if she hadn't been interested in Itachi on a level beyond that of his looks and his smarts. She didn't want Itachi for anything other than his intellect and his looks, but she still didn't want to eliminate the opportunity for somethingmore either. And that, the thing right there, scared her shitless.

"I'm sorry, Naruto," she said.

"Nah," he said, "I just find it hard to imagine Itachi being less of a bastard than normal."

"I didn't say he is less of a bastard than normal," she said. "There's never been any personal malice behind his actions in the past. Compare it to Sasuke if you want, but I know you can see it. How many times has Sasuke tried to kill us for personal reasons, and how many times has Itachi tried to? With no personal investment in us, why should Itachi's attitude change after his reintegration? For the better _or _for the worse?"

Naruto's face had shut down, and it was a risk Sakura had taken when she had brought Sasuke into the conversation. As for herself, she didn't know when she had grown comfortable addressing Sasuke so freely, but she suspected that her association with Itachi had something to do with it.

"You know," Naruto said. "Sai learned how to play the violin while you were gone."

"What?" Sakura asked. "How did- I was gone for a week."

"He's weird like that," Naruto said.

"You can't give such a vague explanation."

"What? He is weird," Naruto said again.

"Well, yeah, but that's not an explanation. That's a fact."

"Wow. That's harsh even for you."

"I might be a bit high-strung at the moment," Sakura said.

"You don't say."

* * *

"Uchiha-san-"

"No."

Within the soundproofed walls of the large conference room, the Village Council was growing irritated with Itachi's refusal to adhere to the rules that had been protocol within his clan for centuries.

"It is correct that my ancestors all married and produced children by the end of their twenty-fifth year," Itachi said. "But, unlike them, I have not been a Konoha citizen for that same amount of years, and that nullifies the contract. In my case, I don't need to make a woman pregnant within the next year, much less marry one."

Itachi was not a vengeful person by nature, but he would not bend on this one. Where it concerned these people, he had bended far too much already. The Council ought to show him more gratitude for taking Madara off their hands. They ought to show him more lenience after everything he had done for them; orders or no orders.

"Uchiha has a point," the Hokage said. Her voice cut through the mumbling voices of the rest of the Council. "In his case, the proper solution would be to construct a new paragraph that accounts for his situation."

"A new paragraph? But Hokage-sama, the contract is centuries old and it has never been meddled with," a female member objected, her three flabby chins bulging back and forth like the skin of a walrus when she spoke. Itachi tried not to keep a prejudiced mind, but he was having a difficult time. Especially where it concerned his clan. He could be petty if he felt wronged, too.

"Construct a new paragraph," Tsunade said again. "One that states that unless the subject itself finds a potential and willing spouse within the following six months, the old contract goes into effect and the spouse will be chosen by the Council within the timeframe of two weeks from that date onwards."

"Not enough certainty. It must be a legally binding proposal," another councilmember said.

"Potential spouse and a legally binding proposal," the Hokage agreed in a clipped voice, sending Itachi a look that clearly displayed the effort she was going through on his part. Itachi was no stranger to guilt, although he never took the guilt of others upon himself. Obviously, the Hokage felt guilty for her predecessors' treatment of the Uchiha clan. The determined woman had passed on that trait to her apprentice. Sakura was alarmingly selfless, as well. It was a fact which intimidated Itachi greatly. People were not meant to be selfless. They were egoistical and self-serving, answering only to themselves if there ever was another choice.

"So," Tsunade said to Itachi. "You have six months to decide on a spouse and engage in a legally active proposal with the woman. I suggest you work hard. Otherwise the decision goes to the Council, and you and I both know the implications and consequences of that. Is this decision agreeable to all parties?"

Like that, the Hokage was Itachi's temporary ticket out of married life and fatherhood. Temporary.

"Yes," Itachi said.

"Good," Tsunade said. She turned to the Council. "I need the Council's answer, please."

The murmurs of the councilmembers became a muddled yes.

"Good," Tsunade said. "The meeting is officially over. You may all retreat to your own business. Not you, Uchiha. I want to have a word with you first."

The second that the door closed behind the last councilmember, the Hokage dropped all formal pretenses.

"I am no fool, Uchiha," she began, her voice deadly in its calmness. "If you intend to pursue Sakura, you would do well to remember that the proposal must be consensual."

"I have not expressed any desire to pursue her."

"That's because you don't express," the Hokage said. "And if my deductive skills are anything to be proud of, which they indeed are, I am fairly certain that you're considering my apprentice as a potential spouse. I can't phantom why, given her history with your brother, but I advise you very strongly to pick another woman, despite how much she might appear as the logical choice from where you're standing."

Itachi didn't answer, knowing that the Hokage still hadn't arrived at her main point.

"Sakura will not enter a consensual marriage with you," Tsunade said tonelessly. "And if she does, I'll know foul play has been involved. Unless she can convince me otherwise, though Sakura is one bad liar, Uchiha, and we both know it."

"I'll consider your advice," Itachi answered. "May I take my leave now?"

The Hokage seemed to study him for a few seconds, probably trying to estimate his trustworthiness, though she hardly needed to. She knew with whom his loyalties lay.

"Yes. You may leave."

He had turned towards the exit when the blonde woman gave him her departing words.

"One day you need to come clean to the public, Itachi. Also about your brother. Especially since you're so obviously going to disregard my words and go after Sakura, anyway."

"I don't know of my brother's whereabouts and I don't need to do anything," Itachi said, and the door closed behind him before Tsunade could come up with an appropriate reply. Guilt was a fine thing, he concluded once more. Truth to be told, he hadn't considered Sakura at all. Regarding a future wife, the woman was far too independent for his liking, and it would be too troublesome to engage in anything of a marital nature with the medic. On the other hand, he would encounter just as much trouble trying to convince any other woman to marry the infamous Uchiha Itachi.

In retrospect, Haruno's independence would prove at welcome challenge to overcome, he supposed.

* * *

Three days after her return to the village, Sakura's patience was wearing thin. More precisely, her patience with her patient was wearing thin. It was like watching a constant rewind of those short seconds of a battle where you knew that the opponents would collide in a deadly blow, but there was still the slight hope that some force interfered and changed fate. In other words; Sakura had just about had it with innuendos and implications and Uchiha Itachi's insistence on spewing them at her at any given opportunity. Something had changed. By God, something had changed, but she had done nothing to instigate it. It was all on Itachi.

"I'm not enticingyou to do anything," she said.

"Evidence points to the contrary. Is it standard procedure to straddle your patient?"

"I need the space in which to work," she answered. "And I'm not straddling you. It's called hovering. If you don't want me to hover, you need to damage your ears and not your eyes next time."

He was prolonging the already long restorative procedure of his eyes, and Sakura couldn't for the life of her figure out if it was intentional or unintentional, because Uchiha Itachi didn't stall and much less did he engage in sexual innuendo.

"I might be able to create an antidote to the poison if I were to collect a sample of your blood," she said. "Then you can stop the drugs and get better treatment. Professional treatment. I am the one best suited for the job. Next to the Hokage, of course."

Weeks ago she would have taken a blow to the gut if she had addressed Itachi's deteriorating health. Now, she didn't even get passive-aggressive. She just got passive. Itachi just lay there, immobile on the bed as he let her talk his ear off.

"What about the one who provides you with the medicine?" she asked. "Hasn't that person attempted a permanent antidote?"

"Her skills are not up to par with the potency of the poison," Itachi said.

"Her?"

Itachi turned his head in her direction, until the pristinely white pillowcase grazed the shell of his ear and the long line of his neck. His stare held that blow to the gut which Sakura had just contemplated earlier. She would have preferred the physical blow instead of this one.

"Yes," he said. "Her."

He held her gaze for a few more seconds. For effect. Then he angled his head back to its former position in the center of the pillow. Sakura didn't return her hands to his face immediately. One part of her was afraid that Itachi might bite off her hand, and another part of her was afraid that she might smother the man with her palms in a spontaneous kill. Or something entirely else.

"All right," Sakura said and cleared her throat. "I guess we're entering a negotiation? What do I want, and what do you want? That sort of thing."

"Why do you pursue this topic?" Itachi asked, his voice running on a bored tone.

"I see a challenge and I rise to it," Sakura said. "This deal would be off the record. And be done with utmost discretion. I'm aware you have no desire to advertise the state of your health, but that doesn't exclude accepting aid from sources that do know of the situation. I'm interested from a medical point of view. Whatever this poison is, it's something new and something unrecorded. I want to understand it. So list your conditions, and we can figure out a deal."

"You have nothing I want," Itachi answered, his attention still mostly on the ceiling above the bed.

"A favor then?" Sakura said, her curiosity overruling any logical thinking. A favor? She had more self-perseverance than that. At the moment, however, her eagerness to learn overshadowed any thought of such perseverance. She was a sponge. She lived to soak up knowledge. That was her weakness and she should have known Itachi would have been aware of that and taken gross advantage of it. Needless to say, all these realizations would come to her after they had parted ways, and she would be lying peacefully in her bed at home.

"Reasonable offer," Itachi said. "I will accept your offer on the terms that I can call in the favor at whatever time I prefer."

"Deal," she said. "Although, it would be helpful if you told me how you acquired the-"

"If you wish to know that, you should have listed your own conditions prior to mine and not have ended the negotiation prematurely. You said you wanted to examine my condition. Not that I had to give up information on it," Itachi said with an edge to his voice that she hadn't heard before. It wasn't angry. It wasn't snide. It wasn't condescending, either. It was, if possible, pleased. Sickly pleased.

"I will still need the blood sample by the end of this session."

"You will get it," Itachi said and let Sakura resume her work on his eyes.

"I came up with an answer," she said after a long pause.

One of Itachi's eyelid drifted open. "Yes?"

"To why you kissed me," she said. It was necessary, she told herself. She needed to address this issue before it turned her mad. Flashes of the encounter were painted to the back of her eyelids, confronting her whenever she closed her eyes for too long. It wouldn't do. It couldn't do. She needed to clarify, to reason and excuse, if only for her own sake.

"I already gave you my answer," Itachi said. "You asked me once, and I answered."

"Adrenaline," Sakura said. "We were both running on-"

He sat up so quickly that Sakura sucked in a great gulp of air that got locked in her throat. She coughed to unlock it.

"It is beyond my understanding why you would bring up this subject for a second time, when I have already given you my answer days ago. Am I to think that your inebriated mind has forgotten what I made clear? After you ran off in an attempt to escape the answer you had asked for?"

"No. That's not- no. No."

"Then repeat my answer from that day and you will find that adrenaline had little to do with my course of action," Itachi said, his voice cold not with hostility but something else that Sakura couldn't decipher. She could easily decipher the rising feeling inside herself, though. Anger. No. Rage. Rage burning so hot that tiny flashes of silver appeared before her eyes. Rage was safe. Rage was familiar. She grasped it in a tight hold; a protective shield against any exterior forces.

"It is beyond my understanding why you would kiss me without any ulterior motive given your criminal history," she said and threw his own words back in his face. "I personally find my explanation a great deal more valid than yours."

"Do not bait me."

"Oh?" she said, not without a short burst of laughter. "Or, what, you'll snap my neck? Just after I offered to save your sorry ass from dying. A bit ungrateful, don't you think?"

"You forget your boundaries," Itachi said.

"Screw boundaries," Sakura said and her uncharacteristic use of foul language sounded grotesque even to her own ears. "They sure weren't at the forefront of your mind when you violated my personal space with your lips-"

"Silence."

"Silence?" Sakura asked. "Am I a dog now? Because then I want a collar with my name glued on it in rhineston-"

"Shut up."

Her mouth clamped shut, silenced by the intensity of Itachi's demand, but not because the intensity was stronger than earlier. It was because it had changed. It wasn't an intensity created from anger. It was created from want. Desire. She could see it clear as day. Both in her own eyes and in his. It was the same feeling as in the underground tunnels of the brothel. The same intensity, yet Sakura couldn't even feel victorious that she had just won the argument. She felt that they both had lost.

"And my point stands clear. Adrenaline," she said in a voice that shook with effort.

She ended the session ten minutes later, and she never got to take the blood sample. She didn't blame Itachi. She wouldn't want to poke herself with a needle right now, so why should she be allowed to poke others with it?


	12. Chapter Eleven

**A/N: **Edited December 8, 2013

_If you are interested in my original novels and works, check out this site on facebook: com/arfrederiksen_

* * *

**Narcissus  
**By Frozzy

* * *

**Chapter Eleven**

She was late with the mission report. Still, it didn't explain why Naruto had been called in the minute that Sakura had entered Tsunade's office with the belated paperwork. As it were, the two of them now stood in front of the Hokage's desk, and the look on the blonde woman's face was nowhere near comforting. Sakura could feel the secrecy of what was about to happen. After all, she and Naruto were victims of such secrecy perhaps a bit too often, and each time Sakura never knew if she should celebrate or grieve. This situation in particular had the potential to go in both directions. She wasn't sure which one to hope for.

"What I am about to say," Tsunade began, "is of outmost confidentiality."

Sakura caught Naruto's gaze out of the corner of her eye.

"I am putting my trust in you two. And I do not expect to have you disappoint me. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly, Hokage-sama," Sakura answered. Naruto remained silent.

"Uchiha Madara is dead," Tsunade said. "He has been dead for quite some time, in fact. I am telling you this because the matter is linked very closely to-"

"Sasuke," Naruto said and finished the Hokage's sentence.

"Who knows?" Sakura asked, ever the pragmatic person.

"Kakashi," the blonde woman answered. "I specifically ordered him not to pass on the information."

The last comment was added for Sakura's benefit. And with good reason, too. A lot of the stuff he had said recently made a lot more sense to Sakura now. She wouldn't have forgiven Kakashi if he had kept this a secret simply because there hadn't been a right moment to announce it. Sometimes that was how the man's mind worked, and Sakura had tried to rid him of that tendency for so many years that she had given up by now. He was incurable on that front. Sakura had accepted this just as she had accepted that Sasuke might never return to them. Now, with Madara dead and Itachi a citizen of Konoha, it made absolutely no sense that Sasuke had not returned. She didn't feel as bothered by this as she probably should have. Perhaps she had grown accustomed to his absence. It didn't mean that she preferred him gone. It just meant that she was indifferent to him. It was only natural, she convinced herself. He had been gone for so long that his importance had waned in his absence. For her, anyway.

Madara's death and Itachi's presence in Konoha raised one very important question, though. What was the younger Uchiha doing that prevented him from returning to Konoha? He had left the village to avenge his past, and now his past was either dead or a part of the daily life here in Konoha. With the way that Sasuke generally worked, this meant that Konoha automatically became his next target. Or his finish line. Whichever he chose. And after several months he still hadn't turned up?

The most obvious answer to this question was also the most dreaded one. Sakura knew that one of them had to ask it, and Naruto probably wouldn't. That meant she had to.

"Do we know if Sasuke is dead?"

Next to Sakura, Naruto closed his eyes and took a second to compose himself. Tsunade withheld her answer until the blond no longer gave off a vibe that screamed murder. Sakura appreciated the woman's insight. Anyone else would have ignored Naruto's reaction or simply not understood the severity of it.

"There is a distinct possibility that he is," Tsunade said.

"He could have changed goals," Sakura said, but even to her own ears it sounded like a bad excuse.

"Highly unlikely," Tsunade said. "I have already debated this with Kakashi. Considering the circumstances, we deem it most proper to end the official search. Temporarily. Until new evidence arises that gives us cause to resume. It takes too many resources to pursue a trail that will most likely lead to a dead end. Figuratively and literally. Of course, I cannot prevent the two of you from pursuing the subject when you're off the clock. However, I most certainly willcharge you with insubordination if the matter interferes with your duty and obligations to Konoha. Otherwise, you're free to do as you want. Within logical range, of course."

Sakura shot Naruto a careful look. He was handling it well. Perhaps he too had entertained the idea that Sasuke might no longer be among the living. It was the rational explanation. With Itachi's return and all. Although, that fact was highly irrational in and of itself. They still didn't know exactly why Itachi had been welcomed back, and Sakura yet had to fully accept the fact that they might never get to know.

"If you don't mind me asking, Hokage-sama, exactly how do we know that Madara is dead?" Sakura asked.

"We have received word from a reliable source."

"That's not good enough," Naruto said and Sakura winced inwardly. Tsunade usually accepted a lot of disrespect where it concerned Naruto, but Sakura wasn't so sure that the Hokage's tolerance for Naruto applied as thoroughly in this situation.

"Then I apologize," Tsunade said. "But it is the only answer you will get."

Despite her silence on the matter, Sakura still agreed with Naruto. A lot of secrecy had been building up ever since Itachi's return. Hell, she couldn't even celebrate the fact that the threat of Madara had been eliminated, because everything else was just a big mess. Sasuke was off to somewhere that they didn't know about; if he was even alive. Madara was dead, though they had been given no name or even a cause of death to reassure them that this was indeed the truth. Itachi was ill to a point where he needed immediate medical attention and Sakura was the only one who was aware of it – and she now owed him a favor as a result of her knightly manner.

Speaking of that, she had to remember to fetch that blood sample of his before he went off on another mission. Despite the obvious malicious intent of the foreign substance within his body, Itachi's condition was incredibly intriguing. On a purely scientific level, of course, and not because she thought he deserved it. If not a poison per se, it was a variation of a poison. She was sure of that. It harbored all the same qualities, but it was something that she hadn't encountered so far in her medical career. And she had encountered plenty. It was her specialty as a medic, some would say.

"Sakura!"

"Sorry?" Sakura said when she realized that Tsunade was talking to her. This was Sasuke's moment. Not Itachi's. She knew to separate the two. She had done so for weeks.

"The hospital is getting a new batch of interns starting next week. I need you on a full schedule," Tsunade said, her gaze strict, and Sakura easily recognized it as a reprimand.

"Of course," she said.

"Very well," the Hokage said with a noiseless sigh. "You are both dismissed. And don't give me that look, Naruto. It didn't work when you were thirteen and it still doesn't."

"Can I just ask one more question?"

"Go on, Sakura. And for the love of God, look me in the eye when you talk. I thought I had rid you of that horrible habit years ago."

Sakura immediately did as asked and met the Hokage's gaze head on.

"Can I ask for a cause of death?" the younger woman asked, basically just rephrasing her question from earlier. Tsunade studied her for a long moment, obviously thinking that Sakura was working with some sort of ulterior motive in the back of her mind. Maybe she was. Sakura didn't even know herself.

"Decapitation," Tsunade answered. She was lying, of course. Sakura hadn't spent years around the woman without picking up on a couple of helpful facts like that. When Tsunade lied, her voice dropped in register. It would be unnoticeable to most people, but Sakura wasn't most people. Not where it concerned the Hokage. Neither was Naruto. People would often hint that the two of them were favored by the short-tempered woman, but it was almost the exact opposite. Tsunade came down harder on those that she cared about. Not easier. And now Sakura knew that this was yet another matter which didn't ring true. The question was whether or not this matter was linked to all the previous lies that they had been fed.

* * *

She had absolutely no idea where Itachi lived.

Sakura realized this after she had parted with Naruto outside the Hokage Tower. How was she going to get her blood sample when she couldn't locate the man? She could wait until their next scheduled appointment the following week, but she also knew that she would be too busy that week with the arrival of the new interns. She wouldn't get any work done besides her hours at the hospital, and she was too curious about Itachi's condition to stall her work on it.

There was the possibility that the Uchiha was out training, of course, but somehow she couldn't picture Itachi as the type to train in public. If anything, simply because he was too paranoid that people would copy his techniques. Hypocrite, Sakura thought. That meant the training grounds were out of the question. Then there was the possibility that he inhabited the old Uchiha compound, but she also doubted that. Why would he willingly live in the same house that he allegedly slaughtered his own mother and father in?

Wait. Allegedly?

"Don't lose perspective, Sakura," she said to herself. Caught off guard, she very nearly shrieked out loud when a couple of kids ran past her and accidentally dropped a basket of groceries in front of her feet. Cabbages and carrots flew free from the confines of the braided basket, and Sakura bent down to help the children gather the escaping groceries. She had picked up the last carrot and would have handed it to the ponytailed girl, but when Sakura straightened up from her crouch the children were gone. Instead, Itachi stood before her.

"Haruno," he greeted her.

"How do you do that?" she asked. He was watching her with something akin to curiosity on his face. How did he always show up when she thought of him? Was he telepathic or was her luck that crappy? It was probably the latter, she thought.

"If you are referring to the premature retreat of the children, I find that they generally prefer to be outside my range of sight."

Sakura snorted and lowered her hand with the carrot before she decided to poke the man in the chest with it. It didn't escape her notice how the street had become surprisingly vacated compared to earlier. It wasn't just the children of Konoha that fled from the Uchiha's presence. The entire city basically rolled in on itself whenever Itachi showed his face in public. Briefly, Sakura wondered if Itachi felt bothered by it. She didn't wonder if he felt sad. Had he considered the members of Akatsuki his friends? If so, hadn't it bothered him to essentially turn his back on them and their cause? Even with Madara dead, Akatsuki and Pein were still honest threats. The world would never go easy on Naruto.

"Never mind," she said aloud, both to Itachi and to herself. There was still the possibility that Itachi hadn't turned his back on Akatsuki, and Sakura did not want to entertain that notion right now.

"I want that blood sample," she said and gave no room for Itachi to account for his presence. She didn't particularly care why he had sought her out. His mind was an ugly place to be, and she had no interest in making it any prettier. Not when she was still pissed at him from their earlier spat. She realized this with some surprise. She didn't usually hold grudges.

"Before you decide to die on me, preferably," she said when the man failed to respond.

He didn't look sick. That was the worst part. When you didn't look sick but you were diagnosed as such, it was almost a clear sign that you were traipsing on the edge. Was he in pain? She hadn't asked that. Those custom meds of his should take the brunt of it, though. If they were any good, at least. They had to be. Even if illegal and off the record, he wouldn't settle for anything less.

"Hey- don't turn your back on me when we're having a conversation," Sakura said when the older man did exactly that.

"I assume you don't want to collect the sample here?" Itachi asked and he sounded as arrogant as Sakura had ever heard him. She didn't know if she had grown better at reading the man, or if he had begun to slack off around her. Perhaps it was a little of both.

"Well, yes, that would be horribly inconvenient," she said. "The hospital is on the other side of town, so we should-"

"Do you not have medical equipment at your place?" Itachi asked and the carrot slipped out of Sakura's grip. She didn't ask how he knew that she lived right around the corner. There were a lot of questions that she didn't ask when it concerned Uchiha Itachi.

"All self-respecting nurses do," Sakura said as she bent down to retrieve the lost carrot.

"I suggest that we perform the procedure at your place."

"I don't think so," Sakura said, realizing very quickly that she should list a couple of reasons onto that statement. "Ino might be there and I won't have any distractions."

Even if Ino had been home, a blood sample wasn't exactly a procedure that required a lot of concentration. Or time, for that matter. Sakura knew, however, that Ino wouldn't be home. And this was why she felt disinclined to bring Itachi there.

"There will be distractions at your workplace as well," Itachi said.

"I'm off the clock. They'll know better than to disturb me."

"You are never off the clock," Itachi said, dismissing her argument like water on a rainy day. If she didn't know better, she would accuse him of pressing the issue.

"All right," she said. "You're bugging me worse than Kakashi when he wants something."

And while she knew how to dissuade Kakashi, she had no idea what to do about Itachi. The two men were equally eccentric, but differed greatly in the nature of their eccentricity.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Sakura had invited Uchiha Itachi into her home, and she had done so without breaking a sweat. Cold sweat, that would be.

"It shouldn't take long. You can just sit down wherever while I go get my medical kit," Sakura said and made a vague gesture towards the couch and armchair in the corner of the apartment. She almost didn't expect Itachi to sit down and was surprised when he moved to do just that. Then she realized how stupid it was of her to assume that he didn't understand simple hospitality. He wasn't a savage. At times, he had better manners than Sakura herself.

When she returned to the living room with her medical kit in one hand, she found Itachi seated on the couch. He had shed his outer vest and Sakura still hadn't grown accustomed to seeing him in Konoha gear. Or, in this case, halfway out of it. In fact, the sight of him on her couch made her falter in her steps, and she readjusted the kit in her right hand to cover it up.

"Okay," she started. "I believe you're familiar with the procedure? It's just a needle, after all."

He didn't grant her an answer and she hadn't really needed one. Picking out the appropriate syringe for the process, Sakura sat down next to the man and motioned for him to offer her his arm. As a medic, you quickly learned that no matter how sick your patient was, you never made any advances on the person unless he or she was perfectly clear that you were the good guy. With Itachi, Sakura had made it a habit to always ask for his permission before manhandling his body. And she had meant that without the suggestive undertone, of course.

With his arm in her lap, Sakura eased the needle through his skin. Itachi's arm didn't twitch and he remained perfectly still throughout the process, his eyes trained forward on an invisible spot on the wall that Sakura wasn't privy to. Instead, she concentrated on the nicely sculpted arm that rested in her lap.

"Did you know that most jonin have a fear of needles?" Sakura heard herself say. "You would think that people who have no issues with blades the size of my torso wouldn't cringe at the sight of a syringe, but they often do."

"You are uncomfortable," Itachi said.

She didn't even put up a fight. "I don't usually invite convicted killers into my home."

He let out a soft puff of air. Maybe he found her comment amusing, she thought.

"That is not why you are uncomfortable," he said. He did sound amused. He was right, too.

"Do enlighten me," she humored the older man as she removed the needle from his arm and studied the blood that she had successfully extracted. "Why am I uncomfortable?"

"Because this is an appropriate setting for us to discuss our situation."

"What situation?"

"Our attraction to each other."

Sakura had to consider that one before she answered.

"Do you actually want to discuss that?" she asked him. "Or do you feel you have to?"

Itachi gave her a look that couldn't be misinterpreted even by the dumbest of fools. She was aware that she had changed her standpoint on this matter. Last time that they had been alone, she had wanted to discuss exactly what Itachi was suggesting that they discussed now. Only now she didn't want to. Changed standpoint, Sakura thought as she began to pack up her medical equipment.

"Women are more likely to claim assault than men," Itachi said. She didn't understand how the conversation took a turn like that, but it was a good thing that she had secured the blood sample. If not, she would have dropped it to the floor or crushed it in her palm. She had not expected that answer. He wanted to discuss their attraction to each other, because he was afraid she would claim rape?

"You have experience with rape," she said.

"Not me personally."

Itachi had spent a good portion of his life together with criminals that quite possibly were a great deal worse than himself. In such an environment, he could not have met a lot of law-abiding friends, much less the kind that respected women. It made Sakura wonder why Itachi had gravitated towards her, when she did nothing but demand such respect from her male colleagues.

"I think we've gone off topic," Sakura said. "I have my sample and I very much appreciate your cooperation-"

"Yes," Itachi said and cut her off. "I want to discuss it. Now."

Sakura's strategy was to take the high road, but she was still pissed about their last fight, so she also knew that she had picked a strategy which was doomed to fail.

"You were quite persistent not to address the matter when I breached the subject last time," she quipped. "In fact, I believe you insulted my person multiple times, leading me to believe that this attraction of yours might not be as grand as you claim it to be. And since we've opened that can of worms, I also-"

"I don't normally act on my desires," Itachi said and his cool stare felt anything but cool where it swept across her neck and face. "The fact that I have done so with you speaks for itself."

"You have done nothing of the sort," Sakura said before she could clamp her mouth shut. And just as she had feared, Itachi looked infinitely intrigued by her slip of the tongue. Sakura knew when she had to retreat and this was definitely one such instance.

"I need to-"

"Don't move. You are disappointed," Itachi concluded from her earlier statement. Sakura refused to look at the man. He had pinned her to the couch with his voice only. He had to know the effect he had on her, even without her facial expression to go by. He had to notice how her legs were shaking with tension and how sweat was breaking out in several places on her body. The man could exert authority over her in her very own home.

"Stop. Now."

"Why would I?" Itachi asked in the soft voice he used whenever he wanted something. Why did she know this? The voice was sinful, covered in all kinds of fuzziness, and she found herself hoping that she was the only woman Itachi used it on. Dammit.

"You talked about rape," she said. "I don't want this."

"That's a lie."

Sakura lifted her head to look Itachi in the face. This was, of course, exactly what Itachi had aimed for, and Sakura found herself with a face full of Uchiha, before she had even processed the man's swift descent onto her mouth. Unlike their previous adrenaline-pumped kiss, this one was slick and soft. So persuasive that Sakura didn't even understand what she was being persuaded to do. Itachi was warm and he was close and she wanted him closer. His tongue was persistent, leaving no room for protests, and Sakura parted her lips to let him in. Her stomach dropped to her feet, and somewhere in the back of her mind she realized that her hands were cording through hair that wasn't her own; loose hair that felt soft and silky. It felt good. Welcome, even. Then Itachi shifted above her, his knee brushing the outside of her thigh, and she was swiveled back into the present.

"This is not discussing," she said. Her voice was thick and clotty, but Itachi seemed to like it.

"No," Itachi said, his mouth catching on hers when he spoke. This was the time to stay composed and not be distracted. With Itachi halfway on top of her, staring at her with eyes like that, it was definitely the time to stay composed.

"I don't-," she began to say, but she broke off when the firm expanse of Itachi's chest pressed down on the softer swell of her breasts. Dimly, Sakura realized that she was fully reclined by now, the familiar cushions of her couch pressing against her back like a wall of support. She could feel her heart beating in sync with what felt like her entire lower body, but what was in fact limited to just one place in that area. Itachi was working her like a tool, and she had a hard time finding reasons that voted in favor of her stopping him.

"Did you- are you listening?" she tried again. She was surprised that she had enough muscle control left to manage actual speech.

"Yes," Itachi answered and planted kisses along her jaw and up behind her ear. If he went for her neck, she was out. Her shirt had ridden up her stomach from them hustling around on top of the couch and the invitation proved too much for Itachi to ignore. His hand right gripped her side, palming the flesh, and then he was off her so fast that she didn't even see him move.

* * *

There was no Uchiha Itachi to be spotted when Kakashi was let into the apartment by a frazzled-looking Sakura. However, Kakashi wasn't so lousy a tracker that he doubted even for one second that the Uchiha had been there. He definitely had. And from the looks of it, he hadn't just been inside the apartment but also on top of its owner. Kakashi refused to think 'in'. It was 'on'. On his owner. Not in.

"I'm not going to say anything," Kakashi said after he had decided to put Sakura out of her misery as fast as possible. The girl looked horrid with the guilt that Kakashi knew was eating away at her.

"Because you know that's the worst response you can give me," Sakura said and Kakashi didn't even question why she led them into the kitchen instead of going for the couch like she typically did. On, he thought again.

"And therefore also the most effective one," Kakashi said as they entered the kitchen. They sat down by the small kitchen table and Kakashi waited for Sakura to decide where she wanted the ball to go; inside the court or outside of it.

"I don't know what I'm doing," she admitted at last and the look she gave him stirred what little paternal instinct that he hadn't managed to eradicate over the years of being her substitute father figure.

"I know," he smiled beneath his mask and reached across the table to pat her on the shoulder. It was awkward for his part, but he knew that it worked for her. Physical reassurance had always been Sakura's thing, while Naruto bit into the verbal kind much easier.

"I was taking a blood-"

"You don't have to tell me," he stopped her. "I assume that the Hokage has passed on the news to you?"

"You know she has," Sakura said, obviously still uncomfortable. "Otherwise you wouldn't be here."

"I could be visiting purely for the pleasure that it brings me."

"Madara is dead, Sasuke hasn't returned and Itachi has been reinstated. This smells foul, Kakashi."

This was where Kakashi's logic failed him, too. Although not in the sense that Sakura was suggesting. He simply didn't understand why Itachi had allowed Sakura to take a blood sample when the Uchiha very well knew what Sakura would find. Itachi's infected blood was the last thing Sakura needed to piece together the puzzle of Madara's death and once it was pieced together, Itachi would go public. Upon his return, it had been the Uchiha's one condition that the public didn't know of his position as double agent and his participation in the killing of Uchiha Madara. Now he had given Sakura an opening to discover that exact position, so what was he trying to gain?

"Something is on your mind."

He shouldn't have been surprised by Sakura's statement. The woman had too much insight into his person than what he was comfortable with.

"Something is always on my mind."

"Something is bothering you," Sakura rephrased her question.

"Something is always bothering me," Kakashi answered, wrapping up that part of the conversation.

"Well, I should be off," he said and stood up from his chair. "I'm late for an appointment. Oh, and before I forget, you might be interested to know that Itachi is currently scouting for a potential spouse."

He hadn't meant to let that one drop quite so crudely, but he also knew that Sakura deserved a fair warning. He didn't stay around long enough to hear her response, however. Ino was two blocks away. She would be home in time to console her friend if any consolation was needed. Peace out.


	13. Chapter Twelve

**A/N: **Edited December 9, 2013

_If you are interested in my original novels and works, check out this site on facebook: com/arfrederiksen_

* * *

**Narcissus  
**By Frozzy

* * *

**Chapter Twelve**

Sakura had first come to know about Uchiha Madara's medical profile when she had spent a day down in the basement of the hospital in search for the annual jonin death records. The profile hadn't been a finished version since the finished one would most certainly not be so easily accessible. It was slack, or neglect, that had led to this drafted version being in plain view down in the hospital archives. It was some time ago, a year perhaps, and Sakura hadn't fully understood the importance of the folder that she out of curiosity and bemusement had flipped through like her father flipped through the newspaper or her mother a cooking recipe. It was ridiculous how real a threat Madara had become in such a short period of time. Now, ironically enough, that threat had been eliminated by another threat to Konoha. She wouldn't have known that Itachi was to honor for Madara's death if she hadn't flipped through Madara's profile that day down in the basement of the hospital.

Sakura considered this turn of events as she reread her notes on Itachi's blood sample.

Nowadays, she would recognize traces of Uchiha Madara anywhere. In this case it manifested as a highly advanced poison that attached itself like a liquid-form cyst and feasted on the nervous system of its victim. It wasn't even truly a poison, but some sort of specialized technique that worked as a poison once it was set in effect.

After thorough contemplation, Sakura had arrived at the most likely conclusion. Itachi was a double agent. He had worked for Konoha the entire time. Itachi was a double agent who had done his duty and was now expected to fall back and carry on his lineage on Konoha soil.

"Why did he give me this? This is absurd," she exclaimed when the frustration became too great. Her voice rang loud in the examination room. She leaned back in her chair and put down her pen, overcome with the abundance of answers and questions.

"Why did he give me this?" she asked, not believing what her notes confirmed. Itachi was a double agent. Spy. Whatever. He had worked for Konoha this entire time. It was surreal. Sakura no longer cared that she owed the man a favor in return for this blood sample. This – all of this – was worth any favor that he could possibly ask of her. She had suspected that something had been off right from the start, but she had never even entertained the idea that Itachi had been her colleague all along. He had been her colleague back when they had met by accident in Grass. Even before that, back when Sasuke had still been a Konoha citizen. The idea was preposterous. The puzzle was coming together and it was turning out to be as grotesque as the fate of Itachi's existence. He had lived a lie. He had played the part of a scapegoat for his entire life and he had been perfectly content with that place in life. So content that he hadn't wanted to rectify the lie once it became an honest possibility. The people still thought that he was a cold-blooded killer.

Was the supposed to tell anyone? The Hokage knew. As an advisor, Kakashi would know, too. He had known of Madara's death, so it would only be natural that he knew of the cause behind it.

Overthrown with sudden anger, Sakura slammed her fist down onto the tabletop. Various items rolled off the table. Studying the large dent in the table, she grudgingly told herself that she would pay for the damage. At least she had had the sense to restrain herself from completely trashing it. Fuming inwardly, she gathered her notes from the dented table and stomped out the room. Itachi had a lot to account for, but she had to put that aside for now. Outside, she bumped into one of the new interns that Tsunade had stacked her with.

"Haruno-san?" the intern, a pretty girl with brown hair and glasses, said.

Sakura schooled her expression and smiled. "Yes?"

"They want you in the operation room. It's an emergency."

Sakura did a quick calculation. Kakashi was off missions for the remainder of the month and Naruto had gone to Suna for a couple of days to blow off some steam. He hadn't been happy with Tsunade's decision. Kakashi had taken the brunt of that anger through a merciless sparring match with Naruto, before the younger man had decided to go vent off in a different country. He hadn't been willing to permanently maim his old sensei, simply because Kakashi had insisted on being his punching bag. Sakura had never before seen either of the men butt heads so intensely. So, unless Naruto had been ambushed on his way to Suna, that left Sai as her last personal relation. And as much as it pained her to say, she was fairly certain that they wouldn't call her in for Sai. It was a trauma patient then.

"Trauma patient?" she asked, already moving towards the elevator. The intern followed.

The rest of the day was uneventful, and it left a lot of room for Sakura to contemplate her recent discovery. She got off at seven and almost immediately headed for Naruto's place. He wouldn't be home. She knew that. She wanted a place to be where she wouldn't be disturbed, and while Naruto's place was a popular rendezvous point for more than a handful of people, it was only ever popular if Naruto was in it.

Uzumaki Naruto's place was unimpressive. Most shinobi preferred their homes simple and Naruto was no exception. Sakura herself could see the logic in maintaining an easy home when you very rarely used it. It was different with her and Ino. When two people took care of one place, you could afford to be a little more creative with the space.

It was there, inside Naruto's sparsely decorated apartment, that Sakura spent the rest of the evening mapping out possible scenarios and linking together events and conversations. By one o'clock in the morning, she had arrived at the exact same conclusion that had been her original starting point. Itachi was, however wrong it sounded, one of the good guys.

* * *

It was unbearably hot for a day in early July and the air inside the hospital was a tight vacuum that sucked you in no matter where you went. It was too expensive to have the air-conditioning turned on except for in the patients' rooms, and Sakura's uniform felt like a second layer of skin. She was not the only one bothered by the heat, but she was the only one who had to handle the heat together with the issue of Uchiha Madara.

In precisely one hour, Itachi was coming in for his weekly session. They had downgraded to one session per week, and Sakura had waited a full three days for this moment to come. She had kept herself in check and she honestly thought that she had done well. She had kept her mouth shut. She hadn't even confided in Kakashi or the Hokage.

"Did Uchiha-san arrive yet?" she asked the secretary as she passed the woman's desk on her way to the storage room.

"Not that I know off, Haruno-san."

By the time that Itachi did arrive – half an hour late – Sakura had made camp by the desk and the poor secretary looked about to pop a vein from frustration.

"You picked a wrong day to be late," Sakura said when Itachi was within hearing distance. It was a miracle that she hadn't already started screaming profanities at the man. Now, as the two of them headed towards an unoccupied examination room, she started to hesitate. It was as if Itachi knew what was about to happen, and it frightened Sakura that he knew her enough to assume correctly. Yes, he had given her the blood sample, but he couldn't know for sure that she would figure out everything else. Had he counted on it? If so, why did he want her to know about his past and not everyone else? She burst through the door of the first unoccupied examination room, and Itachi closed the door behind them.

"You have looked at the blood sample and found an antidote?" he asked.

"I have found out enough," she said and turned around to fiddle with her instruments in her medical kit. She couldn't look Itachi in the face without feeling guilty or betrayed, and that nauseating feeling seemed to increase for every minute that passed. Her body felt like it was in phantom pains. She had thought she could handle this confrontation. Now, she was starting to realize otherwise.

"I assume it would be pointless to start asking questions?" she asked.

"You can ask, though I can't guarantee an answer."

Sakura slammed her stethoscope down onto the tabletop so hard that she shocked herself with the sound.

"You have a lot of nerve," she said. Neither of them knew for certain what she was referring to.

"I believe that to be one of my better assets," Itachi said and spent a couple of seconds on shedding his vest and preparing himself for the eye healing procedure. Sakura stood by silently and watched him. She considered how to properly start the conversation that she had prepared for this day. Itachi was in one of his indifferent moods, but that could change with just one bad word on her part. She had already decided that she was doing this, but that didn't make the prospect any less daunting.

"I know what favor you're going to ask of me," she said. She had figured it out precisely two days ago when Kakashi had dropped the hint.

"I had predicted that you would, since Hatake stopped by the other day. He seems to always keep you informed of the miniscule details," Itachi said.

"He does. And you counted on the fact that he would this time, too," Sakura said. Kakashi was one step ahead. Always. And he made sure that she was, too. God bless him. "You've played your strongest card, the blood sample and the information it holds, to make sure I won't back out of the favor I owe you. And you're right. I won't. So ask me. Ask me if I want to marry you."

He stared at her for a long moment, possibly trying to pinpoint the motive behind her easy compliance. There was no motive. She simply couldn't say no. Not now. Not when he had confided in her and shown her the dark side to her hometown. The side that everybody knew existed, but nobody dared to address. With this in mind, it would be disgraceful – dishonoring, even – to deny the man any kind of favor. Even if that meant she had to marry him. Also, she wanted to know more. She wanted to hear it from him directly, and not just make unqualified guessed through a blood sample. She wanted to understand. And, as always, that was her downfall.

"Haruno Sakura," Itachi said, gaining her attention. "Please accept my exclusive courtship off your person and whatever else it might entail."

"On one condition," Sakura said. "I want to hear the truth of the Uchiha massacre told by you. A firsthand account. No loopholes or omissions. And I want the freedom to pass on the truth to whoever I see it fit."

"You may pass it on to your teammates and your roommate at most," Itachi said and he didn't look like he was going to budge further on that one. Sakura was surprised that he was budging at all.

"Deal," she said. "Lie down on the bed, please. We're ready to begin."

Two days ago, during the afternoon where Sakura had convinced herself that this was the favor Itachi was going to ask of her, she had figured that it was her direct responsibility to follow through on it. She knew, and had accepted, that she shared a mutual trust with the Uchiha. This was more than what could be said for anybody else within the village. Besides, few knew how to safely handle Itachi and Sakura happened to be among those rare few. This was a recent change. It was safest for everybody if she drew the short straw and let herself be part of Itachi's game plan. Unfortunately, she had quite possibly just lost a great deal of Naruto's respect by joining Itachi in his martial scheme. Kakashi's too, though he was more likely to see it from her point of view and go a little softer on her. Sai wouldn't care, and Ino would yell at her. While Sakura's inner social circle wasn't very opinionated, everyone had their minds set in stone where it concerned Uchiha Itachi. Sakura couldn't blame them. She had only recently begun to loosen up her own mind.

"So, how do we do this?" she asked.

"We will spend a certain amount of time with each other in public and in our respective homes," Itachi replied.

"You mean dates," Sakura said. "Fake dates."

"Yes."

"You will explain the massacre to me, and I will remove Madara's poison," Sakura said and left no room for protests. She had become Uchiha Itachi's personal pharmacy. Nevertheless, this schedule would be an easy way to cover for their 'dates' without it becoming awkward. Of course they would have to be more careful not to be eavesdropped on, since they would be in public some of the times, but it would also be decidedly less intimate and Sakura figured that both of them would prefer that. She might have liked that kiss on the couch in her apartment, but the subsequent results of the blood sample had made her defenses rise. The fate of the Uchiha Clan had always been of great interests to all citizens of Konoha and here Sakura was sitting with an Uchiha who was willing to spill the beans; the most essential Uchiha of them all. All it took was for her to play charade for a couple of months. They could always get divorced, she thought. He had said nothing about that.

"The end justifies the means," Sakura said aloud.

"What end?" Itachi asked.

"Never mind," Sakura said. "We're done. You can sit up. I guess that Tsunade-shishou will want me to prove my sincerity in this marriage proposal. That would be how her mind works. Am I correct?"

"Yes," Itachi confirmed. "I trust it that you will be able to succeed?"

"Please," Sakura smiled and watched Itachi pull himself up in a sitting position. "The Hokage have no idea how many lies I've fed her over the years."

"Should I be worried?" Itachi asked, stressing the 'I'.

"I daresay that your perceptive skills outrange those of the Hokage," Sakura answered. Itachi was silent for a long time and Sakura waited patiently for him to say his goodbyes.

"You're behaving out of character," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"You haven't tried to punch me," Itachi said. Sakura thought she heard a suspicious undertone to his voice.

"Tried?" Sakura repeated. "You're implying that I couldn't get in a hit if I wanted to?"

"You're evading the question."

"You haven't posed a question."

Truthfully, she was pissed. And she was working her hardest on not letting it show. She had become better at this over the years, though usually she only ever cared enough when it concerned people who held some sort of importance to her. She yet had to figure out just what kind of importance Itachi categorized as. However, she did know for certain that throwing a fit around the man always felt as though she was playing into his hands, and this was one instance where she didn't want him to have the upper hand. So, she wouldn't throw a fit. She would take the higher road. Of course, this was bound to backfire at some point, but right now she was handling it well. The shock was possibly to blame for that. She was still digesting. Once she began getting the details, it would all probably go to hell.

"Why does everybody think of me as a brute? I don't use violence unless it's called for," Sakura said with a slight shake of her head. The subject change was to distract Itachi. She thought she had succeeded when he didn't reply and let her pack up her equipment in silence.

"I had my suspicions," she said when the silence became too much. "You would never have been allowed back into the city unless there was a part of the puzzle that we didn't know about. I know that part now, and I'm about to have it told in great detail, too. Courtesy of you, of course. Then again, you didn't inform me because you wanted to. You did out of necessity. Own up or die by Madara's hands."

She was blabbering and Itachi hadn't yet said a word.

"I don't think you would care about dying, but I do think it would irk you greatly to die by the hands of an already dead person; one that you yourself have killed. I was the optimal choice. You could tell the truth and I would feel indebted enough to willingly heal you. The whole marriage aspect just ended up being a bonus. That's my hypothesis at least."

Having packed up the last of her equipment, she couldn't stall any longer. She turned around, thinking that she was prepared for anything that Itachi might throw at her. During her confession, Itachi had reclined back down onto the bed. He was cushioning the back of his head on top of his bent arms, and his sleeveless shirt made it easier to study the muscles that corded through those strong limbs. His eyes were closed and the long line of his body was stretched out on the bed with one ankle crossed casually over the other.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Processing," Itachi said and cracked an eye open to throw her a casual glance.

"We don't have time for this-"

She would have said more, but Itachi pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked at her.

"Are you going to ignore what transpired between the two of us in your apartment?" he asked.

She didn't know what to reply. Instead, she sat down on the bed because her knees would have given out if she hadn't. She knew that her expression had to look exactly as conflicted as she felt on the inside, which was why she had picked to sit in the spot farthest away from Itachi. It wasn't a lot of distance, but Itachi would have to move across the bed in order to touch her. She would have time to either brace herself or make her escape.

"Maybe," she said. Itachi was offering her exactly what she wanted, and if not exactly what she wanted, then at least a resemblance of it. But Sakura had always been the selfless type. Itachi was the complete opposite. He took what he wanted, regardless of its availability. This was part of his appeal.

"Stop thinking so hard," Itachi said and Sakura felt the bed shift beneath her.

"You don't even know what I'm thinking," she said. She didn't have to look in order to know that Itachi was closing in on her. True enough, she had barely finished the thought before she sensed Itachi's presence at her back, his breath teasing her scalp and the nape of her neck. Arms were wrapped around her midriff with the confidence of a regular lover, and she was pulled backwards until her back was nestled against Itachi's chest. Sakura didn't know how long they sat there in silence, but at one point Itachi's head lowered and his nose brushed along the back of neck and up behind her ear where he planted a series of kisses against her skin. She wriggled in his grip, testing the strength of his hold.

"Itachi?"

"Yes, Sakura?" he said and nudged her jaw with his nose. Her body curled in on itself like a lazy cat on a summer's day. Itachi's arms released their hold on her midriff. Now, free to roam as they pleased, they trailed down her thighs and grabbed hold of her uniform, dragging the material upwards. Usually, Sakura would wear shorts beneath her uniform, but of course she had ditched them the exact day that Uchiha Itachi decided to put the serious moves on her. She blamed the heat for that decision of hers. She would have worn her shorts if the temperature inside the hospital hadn't been so unbearable. This was like a live action scene from one of Kakashi's pornographic novels, and yet Sakura had trouble feeling embarrassed by the fact. Not when Itachi's fingers were drawing patterns onto her skin like that.

"Itachi," she said again and managed to grab his hands. They stilled underneath her grip.

"This," she said. "Whatever this is, I'm not going to do it in a place like this, so back off before I do punch you."

Behind her, Itachi let out a soft laugh. "Is that an invitation to continue somewhere else?"

"You know, at this rate we won't even have to fake our relationship," Sakura said. Itachi was being playful and she didn't know how to deal with that. She almost protested when he disentangled his body from hers. He stood up from the bed and readjusted his clothes.

"Is tomorrow too soon?"

"What?" she asked.

"For our date."

"Fake date," Sakura said. "But no, tomorrow is fine. I get off at six, so it'll have to be an early date or a late one."

"I'll come by the hospital at six. We'll decide on the course of action once that time comes."

"When do you suspect the Hokage will want to talk to me?" Sakura asked. "About this."

"She will go hard on you," Itachi said. He wasn't really answering her question, but she was used to that. "She suspected from the start that I would pursue you. She was certain that you would never willingly let yourself be swayed by me."

"Well, she wasn't completely wrong, you know," Sakura said to the older man. "Although, this is a business deal rather than blackmail. I do get something in return, after all."

Shaking off the last remnants of desire, Sakura stood up from the bed and joined Itachi on the floor. Itachi's attention immediately shifted to her and she didn't miss the appreciative way in which his eyes roamed her legs and hips before settling on her face. He hadn't wanted her to miss it.

"Six o'clock tomorrow?" she asked, mostly to reaffirm the date.

"Six o'clock," Itachi said, inclining his head politely. He held the door open for her when they left the room, and it was only when Sakura walked down the stairs to the ground floor that she realized how homely their goodbye had been.

* * *

Naruto slacked off on his couch in his underwear with a snack in his hand when Sakura breezed in through the front door to his apartment. He had just returned that day from his impromptu leave to Wind, and while Sakura had no intention of discussing any Itachi-related matters with her friend, she had still missed him and that had called for a visit.

"Jerk," she greeted him as she plopped down on the couch next to the half-naked man. "You know how I hate it when you just take off. I tell you, if you beat yourself up too bad, I'm not gonna heal you. You can drag your sorry ass to the hospital in the morning, and then I don't care how severe your injuries are. It serves you right. Taking off like a snotty brat who-"

She broke off when Naruto's arms encircled her neck and his head came to rest on her shoulder.

"I'm back now, Sakura-chan," he said. "Sorry for leaving. Did you stay here after I left?"

"Only one night," Sakura admitted. They stayed like that for a couple of minutes until Sakura suddenly became aware that Naruto was way too naked to be hugging her like that.

"Back off, Naruto."

"Huh?"

"You're in your underwear," she said and Naruto pulled back as if burned.

"Ah, right," he agreed, clearing his throat awkwardly. "That's ew."

"Ew?" Sakura repeated, her tone deadly.

"You know that's not what I mean," Naruto said and retreated to his bedroom. He came back out wearing a shirt but still no pants. Sakura was comfortable with all of her boys in a state of undress – with the exception of Kakashi, but that was more his fault than hers – but after her recent adventure with Itachi earlier that day, she was not in the right state of mind to be hugged by a guy in his underwear. Especially not a hot guy and Naruto qualified as that. She was his friend, but she wasn't blind to his better assets.

"Did you eat?"

"It's ten in the evening," Sakura said. "Of course I ate."

Naruto shrugged, not bothered by Sakura's less than chipper mood.

"So, did you just come by to scold me?" he asked. For a long moment Sakura didn't reply, and when she eventually did, Naruto's face had lost all of its playfulness.

"Can I stay here?"

"Sure," Naruto replied. "You want the couch or the bed with me?"

It was an unwritten rule that when either of them asked to sleep in the bed with the other, you didn't deny them the request. Making her final decision, Sakura looked up into those bright azure eyes that at times provided more comfort than her parents could. "Is it too early for you to go to sleep now?"

Ten minutes later, Naruto had shut off the lights in his bedroom and Sakura was curled up underneath the sheets of his bed. She didn't know why she had gone to his place. She had even brushed her teeth and had been about to change into her nightclothes back home when she had been hit with the sudden urge to go see her friend. She had gone because she always trusted her instinct whenever Naruto was involved. Now that she was comfortably snuggled up in the sheets of his bed, she knew that this was why she had come. She hadn't wanted to sleep alone and Ino hadn't been home. She prayed herself lucky that Naruto didn't have a girlfriend and wasn't the type to do one night stands on weekdays.

"You okay?" Naruto asked and his voice sounded almost too loud in the silence of the room.

"Not really," she answered.

Naruto didn't reply at first, but rolled over to face her in the darkness. "I'm sorry I left."

"It's fine," Sakura replied. "You needed time to cool off. We would've just fought if you had stayed. Like with Kakashi."

"I should apologize to him," Naruto thought aloud.

"That you should," Sakura agreed. "But you should also thank him."

"I'll do it in the morning. Sorry."

"Quit apologizing and go to sleep. I came here to get a good night's sleep. Not to do pillow talk."

"Don't make this weird."

"Then go to sleep and I won't," Sakura smiled into the darkness.

"You need a boyfriend you can do this with," Naruto said and Sakura knew that she had given herself away when she stiffened up like a board. A sudden tension descended on the room and Naruto pushed himself up onto one elbow. By now, they had both adjusted to the darkness and could see the other one clearly. Sakura met Naruto's gaze head on and found that she couldn't hold onto her poker face as well as she had hoped.

"What did he do?" Naruto asked. Because of his usual cheerful attitude, Naruto always grew much scarier when he was serious.

"He didn't do anything-"

"Bullshit."

By now, Sakura was growing agitated as well. "Look, I came here to forget-"

"Then he did do something," Naruto insisted. "What the bastard do? Tell me."

In the face of Naruto's anger, Sakura always deflated sooner or later. This was like a flashback to their younger days, only this time it was a different Uchiha. The irony was not lost on either of them, and that was probably why the argument had escalated so quickly. They were both still upset with Tsunade's decision to abandon the official search for Sasuke, and this conversation was not helping matters at all.

"Naruto, can we not do this?" Sakura asked.

"No. You always ignore it, pretending that it's nothing," Naruto said and surprised Sakura with his vehemence. "And you still end up here with me, looking like someone ran over your dog! This time you will tell me what he did, and I will be the judge of whether or not we'll discuss it! I still don't get what you're doing with him, but I'll be damned if I let you do anything too stupid!"

She honestly intended to tell him, but when she opened her mouth to relay the facts, what came out was a heartfelt sob.

"Sa…Sakura-chan," Naruto said and reached out for her. For a moment she considered rejecting him. Then she admitted to herself that she needed this, and for the next hour, she cried out her frustration and anger to the one person that she desperately needed to understand her predicament. Only, he wouldn't. He couldn't. This time Sakura was in over her head and she could only blame herself for that.


	14. Chapter Thirteen

******A/N: **And so, after rewriting and reposting everything, we finally get to the new stuff! And, well, a lot of stuff happens in here, and while I'm not the type to goad people into reviewing, I really would like to hear what you guys think about this new twist. I don't know what to think myself. Shit got really serious really suddenly. I dunno. But, as always when I return to my fics, I realize how much I miss/love writing Itachi and Sakura. Tell me what you guys think, and I'll have the next chapter up as soon as I write it (I wrote this in one day, so it shouldn't take long)! Keep me motivated and I'll answer to your prayers ;)

_If you are interested in my original novels and works, check out this site on facebook: com/arfrederiksen_

* * *

**Narcissus  
**By Frozzy

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen**

Dawn was low on the horizon when he returned to his temporary residence. If you could call a shack a residence, Sasuke thought with a curl of his upper lip. He had lived on the road for years, but he had never quite gotten used to the bad living conditions. He had been spoiled growing up as the last honorable heir of the Uchiha clan, and he knew it.

"Honey, I'm home," he said to the empty shack. He dropped his backpack onto the floor and sat down on the moldy mattress he had stolen from a nearby tavern some days ago. The shack had been completely without furniture back when he had first found it, but he had had a lot of time on his hands, so now the shack boasted a mattress, a stool and an oil lamp. It was impressive. The most impressive place he had had for a long time. The shack had no blinds or curtains, but the area around it was too deserted for privacy to be an issue. There were no immediate threats out here. He had sought refuge in the same area more than once, but he made sure to never reuse facilities.

After the conversation with his brother, Sasuke had needed time to process. He had left his associates behind, telling them that he had personal business to attend to. It had been a little over a month now, and he was done processing. Now, he had to figure out how to act on the facts that he had processed. Madara was dead. Itachi had killed him. Itachi had also killed their parents, but he had been under orders of his village. Their village. Konoha.

For the time being, Sasuke had paused in his quest to kill his brother. He wanted to talk to him. He could kill him afterwards if the desire was still there. It was unfortunate that his brother had chosen to reside within Konoha, since it was lowest on Sasuke's list of favorite places. And it was even lower now. Also, while it was true that his brother had been accepted back into the village, Sasuke doubted that he himself would be granted such lenience. He had behaved just as carelessly as Itachi, but while his brother had done so out of hidden loyalty, Sasuke himself had done it for selfish reasons. The public might accept Sasuke back more easily than they had accepted Itachi back, but the Hokage and the Council wouldn't, because they knew the truth behind Uchiha Itachi.

Sasuke lit the oil lamp and put it on top of the stool. He watched the flame flicker and gain strength. He wanted the town ashamed for reasons that he still hadn't completely understood himself. The only problem was Naruto. Sasuke admitted that his former friend had improved over the years both in skillset and in mind. Teamed together with Kakashi and the Hokage, Naruto proved a dangerous variable that shouldn't be underestimated. Moreover, the blond loved his hometown more than he loved himself.

In the light of the oil lamp, Sasuke's smile got warped into something more sinister. Yes, the return to his birth town would prove a challenge and Sasuke had journeyed for far too long with no goal in mind.

* * *

"He's different," Sakura told Ino over breakfast. Ino sat in her morning robe, her hair gloriously messy, and Sakura sat in her hospital uniform with her hair combed and put up into a ponytail. Ino munched on her toast and quirked a brow at Sakura. Sakura took that as a hint to continue.

"He's different around me now than what he was in the beginning," she said. She was talking about Itachi, of course, but she didn't need to say that out loud. Ino was a bit of a mind reader. Always had been, Sakura thought. Ino didn't pry and she didn't push. She might make a lot of jokes and gossip worse than any other shinobi in Konoha, but she was perceptive and kept most of her insights to herself unless you asked her for them.

"He's your friend," Ino said. "That's why."

"He's not my friend," Sakura said and put down her glass of juice.

"Right. Sorry. He's your boyfriend," Ino said.

"I told you it's to make the Council back off. Could you really imagine Itachi married to anyone? I'll be his buffer if it gets me the truth about what happened all those years ago."

"Well, you don't sound defensive at all," the blonde said. "Did you tell Naruto yet?"

"No."

"Afraid he'll judge you?"

"Afraid I'll disappoint him," Sakura said. "I can't make him understand. I don't blame him. I had a breakdown yesterday and cried my shit out all over him. He won't understand."

"I don't really understand either," Ino said. "But I also care less than Naruto, so yeah."

"It's the damn mess with Sasuke," Sakura said and rested her chin in her palm.

"You don't say," Ino said and shot her friend a smile that was meant to reassure.

"He's so sensitive when it's about Sasuke," Sakura said. "One wrong step and he won't talk to you for a week. He reacted nicely enough when I told him about the mission and how Itachi had kissed me, but this? No, no. Especially not after Tsunade stopped the official search for Sasuke. He's like a raw nerve to be around. Even if he says that he got it out of his system, I don't believe so for a second."

"Amen," Ino said with a nod.

"Why are you taking this so well?" Sakura asked, suddenly curious.

"You wouldn't be so hung up on Itachi if he didn't have some redeeming qualities," Ino said and blew a lock of fuzzy hair out of her face. "Also, you know Tsunade better than most, and if you say something fishy is up with Itachi and that she's lying, then I believe you. Just don't bring him back here. I still don't like him. Good or bad guy, he gives me the creeps. I don't understand how you're not freaked out around him."

"Can we talk about something else?" Sakura asked and sat back in her chair. "How's it going with your mom?"

"Oh, she's fine now. It was the flu, so no worries. Did you want to help me repaint her kitchen next week?"

"Sure. Tell me which day and I'll take the time off," Sakura said and motioned for Ino to hand her a knife and some butter. "Anyone else helping?"

"Tenten might, but you know how she skips out on stuff."

"Not really. She's your friend, not mine."

"Can I ask one question though?" Ino asked. "If Itachi is the good guy, then why does he act like the bad guy? What purpose does that serve now? It served a purpose during the war, but it serves no immediate purpose now. So why doesn't he come clean?"

"I don't know. I really don't know. He made me promise not to tell anyone else except for you and my boys. Which reminds me, you can't tell anyone else."

"Nobody would believe me. Itachi a good guy? People will think I've gone over the deep end. I'm still not sure if I believe you myself, but I can't see why you should lie about it," Ino said and stretched her arms above her head. She yawned and looked out the window. "It's a sunny day and you'll be copped up in the hospital again."

There was a knock on the front door. Sakura and Ino looked at each other.

"You go," Ino said. "I'm not dressed."

"Since when do you care," Sakura said, but got up from her chair and walked towards the door.

"Who stops by this early in the morning," Sakura said to herself. It wouldn't be Naruto or Sai. It was too early for that. Kakashi was out of town, and their neighbor only ever stopped by if she ran out of alcohol or cleaning supplies. Why it was those exact things, Sakura had never figured out. She hoped it wasn't related, but that Mrs. Kimura was an alcoholic with neat freak tendencies or dementia. Not that she was an alcoholic who drank cleaning supplies to spice up her weekends. For some reason, Ino's friends never stopped by their apartment. It was almost always Sakura's friends, but that was probably because Sakura was more of an introvert than Ino and needed more alone time to rejuvenate, meaning that people had to come and get her if they wanted to talk to her. Ino, on the other hand, spent most of her time outside the apartment than inside it.

"Coming," Sakura said when she heard another series of knocks on the door. She grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open, though she made sure not to open it too much, so Ino could stay hidden with her messy hair and makeup free face.

"Morning, Sakura," Tsunade said. Sakura clutched the doorknob tighter. "We need to talk."

"Come inside, please," Sakura said and moved aside so Tsunade could enter. Ino looked up from her breakfast. Her jaw didn't drop, but Sakura could see the twitch of control it took her to stop it from doing so.

"I'll go take a shower," Ino said and got up from her chair. She looked casual as she crossed the room, but Sakura knew that she was just as freaked out as Sakura was. Tsunade didn't make home visits. Ever. Not as the Hokage and not as herself.

"You're here to talk about Itachi and I, aren't you?" Sakura asked and guided Tsunade towards the couch. "I can imagine it caught you by surprise, though I don't know how you found out so fast."

"I'm saving that conversation for another day," Tsunade said, which made Sakura stop.

"Why?"

"Sakura, I need you to sit down," Tsunade said.

"Is someone dead?" Sakura asked.

"No."

"Will someone die?"

"No."

"Okay," Sakura said and sat down on the couch. "I'm sitting."

Tsunade nodded. She was nervous. She never made home visits and she was never nervous. Sakura wet her lips and put her hands in her lap. She waited for Tsunade to speak. She didn't press her.

"Sasuke walked into the village early this morning. He was taken into custody by the guards, and he's now locked up in one of the underground interrogations rooms in the Tower," Tsunade said and sat down next to Sakura on the couch. Sakura looked at her. She had heard what her mentor had said, but she didn't believe it.

"You're shitting me."

"No," Tsunade said and took a deep breath. "And I'll overlook your use of language this time, since I understand what a shock this is."

"Does Naruto know?" Sakura asked.

"No. I don't plan on telling him yet. I am telling you only because you are less attached to Sasuke."

She could thank Itachi for that, Sakura thought. If Itachi hadn't appeared and turned her world on its axis, she wouldn't be taking this as calmly as she was. Amidst her confusion and suspicion, she could feel her stomach trying to rebel against her breakfast. She wouldn't vomit – she had better control of her body than that – but that didn't mean the feeling wasn't there. It was the shock, Sakura thought. It was the shock, but it wasn't actually the shock. It was concern. Worry. Worry over what, Sakura didn't know, but she recognized the feeling. She was worried that Sasuke had returned. Why?

"Does Itachi know?" Sakura asked.

"No," Tsunade said. "That's why I am here. I need your advice."

"On what?" Sakura asked.

"On Itachi. Much as it pains me to admit, you know him better than anyone else. Sasuke has requested to talk to him. Do you believe it safe to bring Itachi in to see Sasuke? And I don't mean safe in the physical sense."

"Can I see Sasuke?" Sakura asked, stressing the 'I'.

"Focus, Sakura."

"Right. Sorry," Sakura said and reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Itachi doesn't harbor any malevolence towards Sasuke. Never has. And Sasuke wouldn't have let himself be taken in by the guards if he had come here to kill Itachi. That's simple logic."

"You know," Tsunade said. She had gone very still. "You know about Itachi."

Sakura didn't know what it was that had given her away, but she knew that she was busted. She could just as well go with it.

"He gave me a blood sample," she said. "When I started healing Itachi's eyes, I found illegal drugs in his system. Drugs that were holding some kind of poison at bay. I convinced Itachi to let me create a more permanent antidote than the drugs, and he gave me a blood sample to do it. I've read some files about Uchiha Madara, and I know his work when I see it. When I examined Itachi's blood sample, I realized that the poison was Madara's work. That was after you had told us he was dead. So, in conclusion, I figured that Itachi had fought and killed Madara. And if Itachi had fought and killed Madara, that meant he was some kind of double agent, because otherwise they should have been on the same side."

She left out the marriage-in-exchange-for-information deal, but aside from that she had let everything else slip. And she felt relieved. She felt relieved that she no longer had to lie. She hadn't been supposed to let the drugs and poison part slip, but that was water under the bridge now. Too late to take it back.

"Itachi was poisoned?" Tsunade asked. "From his battle with Madara? There is a lot you haven't told me, Sakura."

"Likewise."

"Okay," Tsunade said with narrowed eyes. "I deserve that."

"And it's not really a poison, but I can't explain that right now until I know more."

"Fair enough," Tsunade said. She uncrossed her legs, so she could lean forward and rest her palms on her knees. "So what is your advice? Can Itachi see Sasuke?"

"If he wants to, yes. But I don't know if he wants to see him. You're really not gonna tell Naruto?"

"Not yet. And you can't say anything either. This is confidential, Sakura. Do you understand that?"

"Yes."

"You will see him, Sakura," Tsunade said, softer now. "And I will tell Naruto. Just not yet."

"I don't know if I should see him," Sakura said with a solemn shake of her head. Tsunade reached out to pat her shoulder. She did it less awkwardly than Kakashi, but it was still awkward.

"I knew you would grow into a fine woman someday," the blonde woman said with a ghost of a smile. "I'm not surprised that Itachi sees it, too. Even if your engagement is a feigned one."

"It's-"

"Let it go, Sakura. I'm in a good mood. Don't waste that. We'll take that talk another day," Tsunade said and got up from the couch. Sakura showed her to the door and thanked her for coming. After she had closed the door, Ino came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her head and steam following her like a smoky shadow. She stopped when she saw Sakura stand up against the door with a haunted look in her eyes.

"You okay? What was that about?" she asked.

"Nothing," Sakura said and pushed away from the door.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing I can talk about," she said and yanked at the towel around Ino's head when she passed her on her way towards the kitchen and the dirty dishes. Ino glowered and readjusted the towel.

"I'll clear the table," Ino said. "You go to work."

Secret, secrets, secrets. When had Sakura become the person that everybody confided in?

* * *

It was half past six when Itachi found her up on the monument, sitting on top of the Fifth Hokage's head. She sat as still as the rock beneath her, and instead of addressing her, Itachi sat down next to her. He knew the face of a troubled person when he saw it.

"You forgot," he said. "Six o'clock at the hospital."

"Sorry," Sakura said. "I took off earlier from work. Time must have skipped me."

"Something's wrong," Itachi said.

"Yeah," Sakura said and stretched out her legs before her. "Something is wrong."

"You can't talk about it," Itachi guessed and looked up at the sky. The sun hadn't yet disappeared behind the horizon. Summertime gave longer and brighter days. Itachi liked summer. He didn't have an opinion on a lot of things, but he had on opinion on nature and its seasons.

"I'm surprised you want to hear me talk about it," Sakura said.

"I don't," Itachi said and got up on his feet. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" Sakura asked, but followed him.

"Home."

"Ino is having visitors," she said. "We can't go there."

"We're not going to your home," Itachi said with a hint of exasperation to his words. Itachi was no fool. Even if the Hokage yet had to come to him with the news, he knew the second that his little brother has passed the gates into the village. It was clear that the Hokage had passed on the information to Sakura, and that was why the young woman wasn't her normal spitfire self. Itachi didn't feel a responsibility for her, but he recognized the signs of a person who carried a multitude of burdens; burdens that had been put there against the person's will. He could relate to her. Perhaps this was the moment where he could relate to her better than ever before. And, he told himself, that was why he had invited her back to his place. Not to seduce her, or otherwise persuade her, but because he felt a genuine note of sympathy for her. People needed to cut her some slack. He himself needed to cut her some slack.

"We're going to your place?" Sakura asked.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I am inviting you," Itachi said. "Stop with the questions, please."

"I'm not going home with you," Sakura said and stopped walking. Itachi wondered not for first time this day why Sakura had been the woman to catch his interest. She was a skilled fighter and healer, but a lot of women within the village were skilled fighters and healers. It wasn't her experience either. There were women with more experience than her, both in life and from the battlefield. Some might say that Sakura's greatest trait was her innocence and naivety, but Itachi knew that it was a façade. Sakura was as cunning as the Hokage, even if she didn't always realize it herself. Perhaps it was her modesty, but Itachi had never cared about that before, so why should he now. No, it was something else. Something that he still hadn't been able to pinpoint up to this date. What was it? What made her shine brighter than everyone else? Why did he like to spend time with her?

"Sakura, trust me," Itachi said. "There is no ulterior motive behind this."

She watched him for a couple of seconds longer. Then she nodded.

"All right," she said. "All right, let's go. March on."

* * *

Itachi's place was not too far off from her own, Sakura realized. He didn't live in the old Uchiha compound. She had already known that. If he had lived there, the press would have been all over it. Also, it was too big for one person to live in and not go insane. No, Itachi lived in an apartment like any other regular citizen. Unlike any other regular citizen, however, his apartment had only the bare necessities for an ensured existence. There were no personal items (not that Sakura had expected that), no curtains and no carpets. His living room was an empty space, which he used for training instead of relaxation. The dents in the wall and floors indicated that. The kitchen was the most homely room. It had a gas stove, cupboards and a kitchen table with two chairs. Not four, but two. The kitchen was the only room that looked finished, Sakura thought. She hadn't seen the bedroom, but she expected that to only have a bed. Maybe a dresser, but she doubted it. Itachi needed few physical elements to exist. It was safe to say that he felt uncomfortable with anything else; with too much stuff at his disposal. Sakura had known that already, but it was different seeing it. It made her feel a little sad, but also a little proud.

"What about the compound?" Sakura asked.

"Owned by the town," Itachi said and gestured for her to sit down by the kitchen table.

"Still?" she asked. "With you living in the village?"

"I don't want it," Itachi said. "Tea?"

It was almost surreal to have Itachi ask her if she wanted tea, but she managed to nod without looking constipated or scared. Sakura had no idea what this was, but she got the feeling that Itachi was headed somewhere with this, so she didn't stop him. She got her tea and Itachi sat down and watched her drink it.

"You're wearing civilian clothes," Sakura said. "I didn't notice before now."

"Do you know the earliest history of the village?" Itachi asked.

"Mostly," Sakura said and tried to remember. "The Senju Clan and the Uchiha Clan came together and founded the village. Senju Hashirama, the leader of the clan, was selected as Hokage. The first. I'm not usually pop quizzed on this, so correct me if I'm wrong?"

"There was always a fight for power amongst the two clans," Itachi said and leaned back in his chair. "There were people amongst my clan who believed that our clan was being ostracized; put aside and given less prestige and power. Uchiha Madara, in particular, and he made no show of hiding it. This discontentment grew stronger after the attack of the Nine-Tails when the rumors started that an Uchiha was behind the attack. Madara had warned our clan previously that this would happen. Now, as it had happened, my clan began to listen to his speeches. With my father in the lead, they began to plan a coup d'état. I disagreed with this. I never cared for the politics of my clan. I cared about the village as a whole. I was an ANBU member at the time. My clan gave me the task to spy on the village to gather information that they could use in their plan to overthrow the government, but I knew that a coup d'état would escalate into another war, so I spied on the clan instead and passed on the information to the Third Hokage. The Third Hokage wanted to negotiate with my clan. Reason with them and dissuade them. It didn't work. I was then ordered to kill them."

Sakura hadn't expected Itachi to bring up this topic himself. It was part of their deal, yes, but Sakura had been prepared to wring it out of him. Maybe he had wanted to get it over with as fast as possible, which would also explain the long monologue. She had never heard him say that much at the same time, and she was stunned into silence now that he was finished. This didn't even qualify as one of their dates. For a date to work, they had to be in a public setting. If not, nobody would know that they had been on a date, and the rumor wouldn't spread to the Council. This was as far from a public setting as possible. Sakura hadn't been prepared for this, but that was probably why Itachi had done it. To catch her off guard so it would be less uncomfortable for him.

"Who ordered it?" she asked through dry lips. The tea in her cup was almost cold.

"Shimura Danzo and the Council," Itachi said.

"Danzo," Sakura said. "He went against the wishes of the Third Hokage?"

"Yes."

"Why did you follow Danzo's order? If the Hokage was still negotiating with your clan?"

"Drastic measures were necessary. The Hokage would not succeed in his negotiations."

"What about Uchiha Shisui?" Sakura asked.

"I didn't kill him like I was accused of. He died of other reasons," Itachi said. "I killed my clan because it was the only way to avoid a war. I would do it again if it served the same purpose. I was working under an order, but I was also following my own convictions. I could see where things were headed."

Itachi was a pacifist. Sakura wasn't surprised that he had killed his family to avoid a war from breaking out. His loyalty to his village was more important than his own feelings on the matter. And Itachi had feelings. Just like everyone else. Blind devotion to his village had simply enabled him to do the impossible: kill his family and kin.

"There were no other alternatives?" she asked.

"They were unacceptable. They would have gotten every clan member killed."

He was talking about Sasuke, Sakura realized. Provided that he did the killing of his clan, Itachi had been permitted to let his little brother live. Permitted. As if it was a hardship to let someone live. Accepting the mission had also ensured Itachi's own survival, but Sakura knew that Itachi didn't consider himself in these things. His own survival hadn't been important. Itachi wasn't a selfless person. He had lived a life that was too hard for that. But he was loyal to a fault, and in that way he could be more selfless than Sakura herself.

"Sasuke is back," Sakura said and clutched the cup in front of her with both hands. "He's here in the village. On lock down, but he is here."

"I know," Itachi said.

"I don't know what to do," she said, a spark of anger entering her voice. "I don't ever know what to do with any of this."

"You're doing fine," Itachi said. He stood up slowly, and walked over to her chair. Once there, he pried the cup from her hands. She had clutched it hard enough to eventually break it, and blood stains were a bitch to remove from wood. Without the cup to hold onto, Sakura felt oddly off balance. As if the world was turning, but she wasn't turning with it.

"I need to do something," she said and stood up from her chair. It put her close to Itachi, and she reached out and put a palm flat on his chest. She didn't know why she did it, but it helped, so she kept it there. He would have to forcibly remove it if he wanted it gone, she thought.

"I need to do something," she said again and spread out her fingers until her hand looked like a bright pink starfish against the grey fabric of Itachi's shirt. Itachi looked down at her hand and then back at her face, but his face was impossible to read. She could feel his heartbeat underneath her palm and it instilled a sense of calm within her that made her close her eyes and breathe in deeply through her nose. Itachi was safe. At some point, he had become safe to her.

"Go now."

She opened her eyes. "What?"

"Unless you want me to grab you and take you to my bed, you need to leave now," Itachi said. "And, in my opinion, that would be the wisest choice. The circumstances are less than ideal for the place that my mind is going right now."

As much as her body was ready for what Itachi was suggesting, Sakura knew that her mind was not. Itachi was just as unstable as her right now. She was processing the news of Sasuke's return and Itachi's overload of information, and Itachi himself had just relived the events of his past. Sakura took a step back and let her hand fall from his chest. The world wobbled, but it was okay. It was better now.

"Thank you," she said, and before she left, she pushed herself up onto her toes and kissed him. It was a good start. A good start to what, Sakura didn't know. But it felt good.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

**A/N: **So many people reviewed for the last chapter (compared to any other chapter) that I don't really know what to expect this time. That's me in a nutshell: paranoid as hell. So, this chapter burst outta me. Six hours and done. It normally takes me days, since I don't plot beforehand but go wherever the story takes me, but I seem to be on a Naruto spree lately. My inspiration is good for it right now. Sad as I am to say it, reviews mean a lot to one's motivation, but for now my inspiration is on a roll, so it can rule the party all on its own! Anyway, this chapter is kind of special, and I'm looking forward to seeing if any of my readers can tell me how/why. Sasuke has truly messed up my Itachi/Sakura/Naruto dynamic, and I love him for it. Makes for a funnier ride. Now enjoy!

_If you are interested in my original novels and works, check out this site on facebook: com/arfrederiksen_

* * *

**Narcissus  
**By Frozzy

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen**

He had prepared himself for this day for what felt like his whole life, but after the official search had been stopped, he had allowed himself to relax. To slack off and not worry so much. That was wrong. A bad choice. Now, with Sasuke back in the village of his own volition, Naruto was angry with himself. Angry that he had, just for one moment, let down his guard, because it was in that moment that Sasuke had entered the village, and Naruto hadn't been there to meet him first.

"I'm not letting you in there with that look on your face."

Naruto looked away from the door of the interrogation room and up at Tsunade. The blonde woman had a decisive curl to her upper lip that Naruto recognized as a warning signal. Next to the Hokage, Kakashi stood with his arms crossed and his head drooping towards his chest in thought.

"What?"

"You look ready to kill someone," Tsunade said. The atmosphere wasn't good. It was nowhere near good, and Naruto didn't have the focus to change it. Sasuke was in there. They were separated by only a door. A piece of wood that Naruto could easily beat to splinters with his bare hands. But Naruto was an adult. There were etiquettes to uphold, and facades to maintain. Yes, he had chased Sasuke for most of his childhood and his adolescence, but he had never thought about what to do once he caught him. Now, as an adult, he could admit that if he had caught Sasuke any sooner than this, he would have fucked up his catch big time. He didn't even know what to do now. With the extra experience and knowledge of an adult, he still didn't know what to do beyond saying 'hello' and see where that got him. He doubted Sasuke would be impressed by 'hello'.

"I'm not angry at him," Naruto said and looked back at the door. "I'm angry at myself."

"Sounds the same to me," Tsunade said, but her face eased up a little.

"I was supposed to find him," Naruto said. "I said I would bring him back."

"Even if you brought him back, there would still be consequences for him, Naruto," Kakashi said.

"Then what about Itachi?" Naruto asked, a thread of confusion entering his voice. "He got back in, and he's done worse things."

"Ask Sasuke," Kakashi said with an air of misplaced casualness.

"Kakashi," Tsunade said. What? Kakashi smiled at Naruto, but said nothing more.

"What?" Naruto asked. Ask Sasuke? Ask Sasuke about Itachi?

"Go," Tsunade said and pointed to the door. Naruto gave Kakashi one last look, and then he turned towards the door. It was a regular door. No fancy color and no fancy gold or silver door handle. Naruto almost wanted that to have been true. The door needed to symbolize the person behind it, and Sasuke was better than this. Of course, that was Naruto's opinion, and his opinion differed greatly from everybody else's. Shaking his head, he reached out and pulled the door open. There was no great burst of light and there was no enormous gust of wind. There was Sasuke, sitting by the table in the middle of the room and looking like an older version of himself. He looked up when Naruto walked inside. Nothing changed on his face, but Naruto knew that both of them experienced the same tumultuous range of emotions in that moment. It was a mix of memories, wants and regrets. A friendship gone bad. No, not bad. Gone on hold. It was confusing, and Naruto swallowed past the ball in his throat. He wasn't prone to emotion. Never had been. A childhood of solitude had numbed him to a great array of emotions. His cheerfulness was overcompensation. Really, it was fucking obvious. He had to have something in common with Sasuke, after all. He didn't know how people missed it, though Sakura had always told him that he was a great actor. Sasuke had given up on believing in the goodness of man, and Naruto had put all of his trust into it. They shared the same core, but they coped with it differently.

"Naruto," Sasuke said in greeting. Naruto said nothing. Not even 'hello'. He walked over to the table and sat down opposite of Sasuke.

"You're here to talk to me, I assume," Sasuke said. "Perhaps you should do that and stop looking like a gaping idiot."

"Fuck you," Naruto said.

"That's nice," Sasuke said with a hint of a smirk.

"Why did you come back?" Naruto asked.

"You're not happy to see me? What a shame."

"Answer the question."

"You talk like a grown-up," Sasuke said. He leaned forward in his chair and crossed his arms on the cool surface of the table. "Lord knows you had a lot of growing up to do, but it seems like you've managed it, after all."

Naruto felt a surge of anger rise within him, but he stomped it down. He wouldn't rise to the bait. He would get no answers if he did.

"Thank you for the backhanded compliment," Naruto said. "Now answer the question."

"Why should I talk to you?"

"Because you want to," Naruto said. "Or, if that hits too close to home, because you could use someone on your side for what's to come, and I'm your best option."

"You forget our third party."

Naruto didn't bother to hold back his scoff. "Sakura doesn't care about you. Not anymore. You can't manipulate her, but I'll let you figure that out for yourself, though that might be hard from inside here. Now answer my question."

"Touchy," Sasuke said and leaned back in his chair with his arms still crossed. "You're extraordinarily well-behaved. Using words rather than fists. Did the Hokage lecture you before she let you loose in here?"

"We're not kids anymore, Sasuke. Stop messing around and answer the question," Naruto said, and something must have clicked into place, because Sasuke uncrossed his arms and gave a small nod of acquiescence. When he looked at Naruto this time, it was different than before. Naruto wasn't sure that Sasuke had ever looked at him like he did now. It was a look of acknowledgment, and it looked wholly out of place on Sasuke's face. Naruto wanted to either curl up into a ball or hit something hard and strong. Something that would hurt and bring him back to his right mind. Fuck. He was no slobbering dog. He was done yearning for Sasuke's approval, so why the hell did the bastard give it to him now?

"My brother killed Madara," Sasuke said. Naruto hadn't expected that. He didn't know what he had expected, but he hadn't expected that.

"After he had killed Madara, he came to me and let me in on a secret," Sasuke continued.

"A secret?"

"Yes," Sasuke said. "Itachi was set up by Konoha; the beloved village that you hold so close to your heart and which only has the best interest in mind for its citizens. Bullshit. Itachi was ordered to do away with our entire clan, although it was against the wishes of the Third Hokage. Old geezer deserves credit for that, I guess."

Naruto let his mind process the information. Itachi was ordered to kill his clan? Puzzle pieces came together and formed a picture inside his head that he hadn't dared to believe before now. It made sense. Itachi had never struck Naruto as the type to mindlessly kill people. Most of all, he had always struck Naruto as a pacifist. If Itachi had worked on the orders of Konoha, it also made sense that he had been allowed back into Konoha without any official trial.

"That actually makes sense," Naruto said out loud.

"It's the truth. It should make sense," Sasuke said with a shrug of his shoulders.

"So why are you here? You still haven't told me that."

"I'm here to talk to my brother," Sasuke said. "Obviously."

"You want to make amends?"

"Hardly. I want to understand."

"Have you seen him yet?" Naruto asked. His hands were grasping his knees under the table, and the grip was hard enough to bruise, but it kept him focused. The mild burn and pain kept him focused.

"No," Sasuke said. "You're the first person I've talked to."

"You've been here for five days, and I'm the first person?"

"Tsunade holds me in low regard," Sasuke said and forewent any honorific. "She is smart. She doesn't trust me."

"I trust you," Naruto said. It was a moment of weakness, and he cursed himself for the slip. He could see Sasuke shutting down. He could see it in the lines of his face and the back of his eyes. If Naruto was surprised that he could still read Sasuke this well, he chose to ignore it for now. Unless he wanted to fuck this up any worse, he had to wrap up the conversation and leave, and he had to do it fast.

"I'm here to talk to my brother," Sasuke said. "I am here, because he is here. That's all."

"We're friends, Sasuke," Naruto said and stood up from his chair. "Either you can't or you won't see it, but that doesn't make it any less true for me."

"Friends are a liability," Sasuke said with a sneer. "Don't fool yourself."

"Friends keep you on the right path," Naruto said. "I've failed you there, I know, but I won't fail you again, and now my time is up in here. I'll try to come see you again, but I don't know if I'm allowed."

"Don't come," Sasuke said to Naruto's retreating back. Naruto bit his tongue hard enough to taste blood. When he closed the door behind him, he stood face to face with Tsunade and Kakashi. They could at least have had the sense to give him a couple of minutes alone first, he thought.

"Is it true?" Naruto asked Tsunade, and he couldn't recognize his own voice. "Was Itachi ordered to murder his clan?"

"Yes," Tsunade answered.

"But he let Sasuke live."

"He was given permission to let one clan member live," the blonde woman said.

"He chose Sasuke. Does Sasuke know that?" Naruto asked.

"We don't know," Kakashi said and he sounded apologetic.

"I don't think he knows. Itachi didn't tell him that part," Naruto said.

"Why not?" Tsunade asked.

"Because he's very determined to talk to Itachi," Naruto answered. "Why would he want so badly to talk to Itachi unless part of the puzzle is still missing? Why would he come here to see Itachi if he already knew everything? He must feel that something is missing, and that is why he came here. To ask Itachi about the full truth. Can I go now? I've done my duty, and I have a sparring session with Sai planned."

Tsunade nodded. "Sakura also knows about Itachi. In case you want to talk about it to someone. You did well, Naruto."

"I guess," Naruto said. When he had walked around the corner of the hallway and was no longer in sight, Kakashi turned to Tsunade. He knew that the Hokage was conflicted, but unlike Naruto he also knew that she couldn't afford to appear conflicted.

"You had Naruto talk to Sasuke, and you had Sakura talk to Itachi," Kakashi said. "Smart tactic."

"I won't set the brothers up in the same room unless I'm sure they won't kill each other," Tsunade said with a sigh. "Naruto knows Sasuke best, and Sakura knows Itachi best. I needed their input first. They've both given positive input, which is good. We'll see if they are right. I'll contact Itachi and try to set up a meeting between the two of them."

"I don't see a happy ending to this," Kakashi said.

"No, but I have to try," Tsunade said. "We have to try."

* * *

Naruto was headed towards the training fields and Sai, when he bumped into Sakura and Itachi halfway there. He still didn't understand what was going on between the two of them, so he turned a blind eye to it. Even if the two of them were holding hands in the middle of a public street, he turned a blind eye to it. He couldn't deal with that. Not before and certainly not now. He could, however, deal with something else that related to Itachi. When he came close enough to address the couple, the smile fell from Sakura's face and she let go of Itachi's hand. She had sensed Naruto's bad mood, and now her full attention was on him. A small part of Naruto felt gleeful, but he ignored it. He always felt possessive when it came to Sakura. That wasn't likely to ever change.

When he came to a stop in front of them, Sakura reached out for him. It was an aborted movement, and her arm fell back to her side when Naruto didn't respond in kind. He felt rootless. Completely and utterly without any ground underneath his feet. Sakura could have put the ground back, but not with Itachi there.

"Did you know?" Naruto asked Sakura. "Did you know Sasuke is back?"

"Yes," Sakura answered.

"You didn't tell me."

"Tsunade made me promise not to," she said and sounded almost wrecked. He wondered how he sounded. If he could make her sound like that, it meant that he probably sounded worse. Tuning Sakura out, Naruto turned to Itachi. The older man wore a blank face, and it was a relief after Naruto's conversation with Sasuke. Naruto could read Sasuke like an open book, but Itachi was closed to him. Closed and bound in thick impenetrable leather. Thank God.

"I'm sorry," Naruto said to the oldest Uchiha. "I guess you never really worked for the Akatsuki either, so you never really wanted to kill me. Or anyone else."

There was still no movement on Itachi's face, but Sakura sucked in her breath at the implication of Naruto's words.

"Apology accepted," Itachi said. "Although it is unnecessary, since I also apologize."

"How do you know?" Sakura asked Naruto. "About Itachi."

"Sasuke told me," Naruto said to Sakura. Sakura's head whipped around to look at Itachi.

"You told Sasuke? When?" she asked him.

"Before I came here," he said.

"You said you didn't know where he was."

"I didn't," Itachi said with a voice of reason. "Not at the time that you asked."

"Never mind," Sakura said and turned back to Naruto. "You saw Sasuke?"

"Just now," Naruto said.

"How did it go?" Sakura asked.

"He wants to talk to Itachi," Naruto said. "I guess you didn't tell him the full truth about the massacre?"

"If I had done that, he wouldn't have come here," Itachi said.

"What?" Sakura asked. She was using her dangerous voice. When Sakura used her dangerous voice, you were in for a true shitstorm. Naruto had seen the signs long ago, but Itachi probably hadn't. Again, a small part of him felt gleeful.

"You planned this?" Sakura asked Itachi. "You planned Sasuke's return. You led him here, and you said nothing about it to any of us?"

"I didn't want to induce false hope. I couldn't be sure that he would follow me, but I left out enough information about my mission that I was relatively sure he would."

"Mission," Naruto repeated. "It really is true. The famed Uchiha massacre was a mission ordered by Konoha."

"Without the permission of the Third Hokage, remember that," Sakura said.

"Doesn't make a difference," Naruto said. "It's enough to give Sasuke a grudge against Konoha."

"What do you mean?" Sakura asked.

"Before, he held a grudge against Itachi. Now, he holds a grudge against Konoha. Simple, really," Naruto said and saw the worry etch its way onto Sakura's face. "I gotta go now. Sai is waiting for me. If I don't show up soon, he'll start to look for me. See ya later."

He took off with a casual wave and a fake smile. And that, he thought, wasn't good. Uzumaki Naruto, ever the optimist, had found the limit to which his opportunism failed him. Sasuke sucked him dry like a planted starved in the desert. He took all of Naruto's energy and goodwill, and turned it into something dark and lifeless. Sasuke was the shadow to Naruto's light, and Sakura was the air commuting in between the two of them. Without the air, there was nothing to keep the two together. Without the air, they were too alike and too different to coexist, but damn, Naruto wasn't giving up on his first and his best friend. Sasuke had changed, but so had Naruto.

* * *

"You're upset, because Naruto is upset," Itachi told her, and Sakura fought her best not to smash his face in.

"It doesn't matter," she said. "Now lie down, and let me look at your eyes. We'll look at Madara's poison afterwards, but I'm still working on the permanent antidote, so it will be more of a diagnosis than a cure."

They were in Itachi's apartment. More precisely, they were in Itachi's bedroom. It was just as simple and rustic as Sakura had first assumed, but now she had proof to back it up. A mattress on the floor with a rickety lamp standing next to it. Nothing more than that. It was sad, but it also stayed true to Itachi's character. After their first date in public, Naruto had bumped into them. He had left without questioning their handholding, but Sakura knew that he had seen it. Soon the rumors would start, and Naruto would put two and two together. Granted, she could also just tell him about her deal with Itachi. Now that he knew about Itachi and Sasuke, it should be easy enough to explain. Marry Itachi in exchange for a firsthand account of the Uchiha massacre told by Uchiha Itachi himself. At the moment, however, she had to focus on Itachi and his eyes. The treatment had taken longer than what she had originally thought. Itachi's eyes were piece of art; finely tuned and finely detailed. After the eyes, she had to focus on Itachi's poisoned body. In general, she just had to be Itachi's personal pharmacy, and then everything else had to wait until later. Sakura was good at compartmentalizing. There was a time for everything. Right now, the time was wrong for the argument that she desperately wanted to have.

"Lie still," she said. "And don't blink so much. You know this already, stop-"

"I don't want you upset with me," Itachi said. Sakura dropped her hands from his eyes. "It will complicate our guise as an engaged couple. At worst, it will cripple our deal beyond fixing."

"Right," Sakura said with a small scoff. "You almost had me there. Points for use of trickery."

She put her hands back up to his eyes. She had just begun the process of melding her chakra with Itachi's, when she felt his cool hand grasp the back of her knee. She didn't know how he did it, but somehow he found the leverage to pull her up and forwards until she sat above his stomach with one leg spread out on each side of him. He had manhandled her into straddling him, and she didn't have the energy to put up a fight and resist it. It was nice. She could feel the pressure of his hands where they rested on her thighs. Again, it was nice. Why should she stop it?

"Also," Itachi said and looked up at her. "I don't want you upset with me."

"Nothing more?" Sakura asked and held his gaze.

"Nothing more," he repeated after her.

"Points for honesty," Sakura said and leaned down to kiss him. He opened his mouth, and the wet slide was delicious and sweet enough for Sakura to sigh into the kiss and press closer. It was a new situation, a strange one, and the novelty of it made Sakura bold. It struck her with the type of hardheaded courage that she experienced only on the battle field. Pushing her thoughts aside, she rested her arms on either side of Itachi's head, and used the newfound leverage to grind down into the body beneath her. The angle was off, but when Itachi took a hold of her hips and pushed her down an inch or two, she could feel the moment when the angle became right. Her movements grew smoother, assisted by the movements of Itachi, and she could feel the hard press of his flesh nestle into the curve where her thigh met her groin. Everywhere on her body she felt warm, but her lower body was the only place where it felt warm enough to hurt. It wasn't anything new. Sakura was no virgin, and she had never been too prudish. But the intensity was new, a hell of a lot new, and it shocked her. She slid a hand down to Itachi's abdomen and held it there, stopping all movement. Her heat beat wildly in her chest, and she wasn't completely sure why.

"Sorry," she said and rested her forehead against his, breathing in his air like a fish out of water. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize," Itachi said. With great effort, she managed to disentangle herself from the body beneath her, and when she sat back down on the floor, she had regained a modicum of her composure. Her face was still aflame with want, and her hair had to look like a bird's nest, but she ignored all of that just like she ignored the prominent bulge in Itachi's pants. No, she told herself, and for one reason or another, an image of Sasuke's face popped into her head. She could feel her face settle into a mix between surprise and anger. Fuck no. He no longer held that power over her.

"Sakura?"

"Nothing," she said and schooled her expression into one of indifference. "Let's have a look at Madara's handiwork."

She still didn't know what they were doing, but she was starting to understand that they were faking very little, and wasn't it all supposed to be about faking?


End file.
